THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Professor  Roland  D.  Hussey 


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FRBEIi*,,  , 


Freeborn  Garrettson 


By 

EZRA  S.  TIPPLE 


NEW   YORK:    EATON   &   MAINS 
QNCINNATI:  JENNINGS  &  GRAHAM 


Copyright,   1910,  by 
EATON  &  MAINS 


6X 


TO    THE 

NEW   YORK  CONFERENCE 

IN     LOVING     MEMORY     OF     OUR     HONORED     DEAD 
AND     WITH     AFFECTIONATE    AND    FRATERNAL 
REGARD   FOR  ITS  LIVING  MEMBERS,  WHO 
SO    WORTHILY    REPRESENT    TO    THIS 
GENERATION   THE   SPIRIT,   PUR- 
POSE,     AND      ENTERPRISE 
OF   THE    FATHERS 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

Prefatory  Note 7 

I.  Estimate 9 

II.  In  the  Maryland  Wilderness....  12 

III.  The  Summoning  Voice 29 

IV.  In  the  Saddle 40 

V.  The  Missionary 56 

VI.  The  New  York  Conference 64 

VII.  The  Home  on  the  Hudson 74 

VIII.  The  Preacher  and  Teacher 95 

IX.  The  Ecclesiastic 104 

X.  His  Personality 114 

XI.  The  Itinerant's  Last  Journey 123 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  sources  to  which  I  have  gone  for 
information  concerning  Freeborn  Garrettson 
are:  The  Life  of  Garrettson,  by  Nathan 
Bangs,  written  by  him  at  the  request  of  the 
family;  Garrettson's  Journal,  which  was 
brought  out  in  1791  and  contained  an  ac- 
count of  his  experiences  and  travels  up  to 
June  28,  1790;  his  manuscript  Journals, 
manuscript  Notes  on  his  Printed  Journals, 
and  an  incomparable  collection  of  Garrett- 
son letters  and  papers  in  Drew  Theological 
Seminary;  the  Semicentennial  Sermon 
which  he  preached  before  the  New  York 
Conference  in  1826;  Asbury's  Journal,  Lee's 
Short  History  of  the  Methodists,  and  the 
various  other  histories  of  American  Metho- 
dism, together  with  numerous  other  books 
relating  directly  or  indirectly  to  the  period 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  covered 
by  his  life. 

The  picture  of  Garrettson  which  ap- 
pears in  Bangs's  Life  of  Garrettson,  and 
which  has  been  reproduced  many  times 
since,  is  from  a  painting  by  Paradise  and 
engraved  by  Durand.  The  picture  in  this 
7 


8  Prefatory  Note 

volume  is  from  a  miniature  portrait, 
painted  by  J.  Thomson  for  Mrs.  Garrett- 
son,  and  which  remained  in  the  family  until 
the  death  of  Miss  Garrettson,  when  it  came 
into  the  possession  of  Drew  Theological 
Seminary,  where  it  now  is.  It  has  never 
before  been  reproduced,  and  is  of  peculiar 
interest  inasmuch  as  it  was  a  favorite  pic- 
ture with  both  Mrs.  and  Miss  Garrettson. 


CHAPTER  I 
ESTIMATE 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  attempt  to  estab- 
lish Freeborn  Garrettson's  place  in  Metho- 
dist history.  That  has  already  been  done, 
and  his  place  is  forever  secure.  John  New- 
ton, speaking  of  Whitefield's  eloquence, 
said:  "If  any  man  were  to  ask  me  who  as  a 
preacher  was  second  of  all  I  have  ever 
heard  I  should  be  at  some  loss;  but  in  re- 
gard to  the  first,  Mr.  Whitefield  so  far 
exceeded  every  man  of  his  time  that  I  should 
be  at  no  loss."  By  common  consent  Francis 
Asbury  is  given  the  highest  seat  among 
the  fathers  of  American  Methodism.  And 
while  there  may  be  some  honest  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  who  should  rank  next  to 
him  in  the  first  half  century  of  our  history, 
the  consensus  of  opinion  of  Methodist  his- 
torians would  seem  to  accord  that  honorable 
distinction  to  Freeborn  Garrettson.  Dr. 
Bangs,  in  his  History  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  says  that  at  the  time  of 
Garrettson's  admission  into  the  itinerant 
ranks  in  1775  the  number  of  preachers  was 
only  19,  and  members  in  the  societies  3,148, 
9 


1 0  Freeborn   Garrettson 

and  at  the  time  of  his  death  in  1827  these 
had  increased  to  1,642  preachers,  and  church 
members  421,105,  and  adds,  "and  perhaps 
no  individual  preacher  contributed  more,  if 
indeed  as  much,  to  promote  this  spread  of 
the  work  than  the  Rev.  Freeborn  Garrett- 
son"; and  no  man  of  his  generation  was 
better  quahfied  by  personal  acquaintance 
with  Garrettson,  by  wide  observation  and 
knowledge  of  men,  and  by  superior  intel- 
lectual attainments  to  give  Garrettson's 
measure  than  Nathan  Bangs. 

A  recent  writer  in  the  Methodist  Review 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South, 
says :  "I  doubt  whether  Freeborn  Garrettson 
has  received  his  due  recognition  in  our 
early  history.  The  fact  that  he  was  a  Mary- 
lander,  a  man  of  wealth  with  perhaps  not 
a  little  of  the  old  aristocratic  air  clinging  to 
him,  and  that  he  had  married  into  an  old 
and  wealthy  family  in  New  York,  may  have 
come  in  between  him  and  his  humbler 
brethren  of  the  North,  and  the  fact  that  he 
was  an  avowed  antislavery  man  of  the  most 
intense  type,  and  opposed  to  the  rule  of 
Asbury  and  McKendree,  as  it  existed,  may 
have  had  something  to  do  with  his  want  of 
popular  favor  in  the  South ;  but  whatever 
the  cause,  I  think  the  fact  I  have  recog- 


Elstimate  1 1 

nized  is  unquestionable,  and  yet  the  Church 
has  produced  few  men  whose  influence  for 
good  has  been  greater  and  few  men  whose 
history  has  had  in  it  more  features  of  ro- 
mantic interest." 

While  unquestionably  there  is  some  basis 
of  fact  in  the  opinion  as  thus  expressed, 
Garrettson  has  not  at  any  time  since  his 
death  been  in  eclipse.  Neither  was  he  in 
his  life.  Who  of  his  brethren  could  throw 
him  into  shadow?  Not  Jesse  Lee,  nor 
Ezekiel  Cooper,  nor  John  Dickins ;  not  Ben- 
jamin Abbott,  nor  Thomas  Ware,  nor  Caleb 
Pedicord ;  not  Richard  Whatcoat,  nor  Will- 
iam McKendree.  There  were  men  of  that 
generation  who  were  more  celebrated 
preachers,  and  there  were  those  who  were 
better  scholars,  but,  all  in  all,  itinerant,  mis- 
sionary, preacher,  statesman,  in  that  first 
generation  of  Methodist  itinerants,  there 
was  only  one  man  who  o'ertopped  him,  and 
that  man  was  Francis  Asbury.  And  who- 
ever knows  the  position  accorded  by  his- 
torians to  this  greatest  ecclesiastic  of 
American  Christianity  in  the  three  or  four 
decades  following  the  Revolutionary  War 
will  appreciate  that  to  be  ranked  next  to 
him  is  no  insignificant  or  meager  distinc- 
tion. 


CHAPTER  II 
IN  THE  MARYLAND  WILDERNESS 
"I  WAS  born  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
1752."  It  is  with  this  statement  that  Free- 
born Garrettson  begins  the  first  part  of  his 
Journal,  which  he  entitles  "A  short  account 
of  my  life  till  I  was  justified  by  faith." 
The  date  was  August  15;  the  place,  the 
State  of  Maryland  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Susquehanna  River.  His  grandfather  was 
an  immigrant  from  Great  Britain  and  among 
the  first  settlers  on  the  west  side  of  the 
Chesapeake  Bay.  His  parents  were  com- 
municants of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
their  children  were  brought  up  in  the  forms 
and  usages  of  that  Church.  His  father 
was  a  very  moral  man  and  was  considered 
by  his  neighbors  an  eminent  Christian.  For 
him,  as  for  his  mother,  Garrettson  always 
had  great  affection.  His  mother  was  deeply 
religious,  having  come  under  the  influence 
of  the  preaching  of  George  Whitefield,  who 
in  his  various  itinerant  journeys  in  America 
produced  an  impression  which  long  con- 
tinued. She  had  also  heard  Gilbert  Ten- 
12 


In  the  Maryland  Wilderness       13 

nent,  an  eminent  Presbyterian  minister,  and 
one  of  the  minister-sons  of  the  distinguished 
WiUiam  Tennent,  who  is  regarded  as  one 
of  the  chief  founders  of  Princeton  Uni- 
versity, and  had  been  led  by  his  preaching 
to  reHgious  contemplation  and  activity.  Her 
son  gave  as  his  testimony  in  later  years  that 
although  she  lived  in  a  "very  dark  day"  she 
most  certainly  had  "inward  religion,"  which 
seems  to  have  been  a  rare  experience  be- 
fore the  Methodist  itinerants  invaded  Mary- 
land for  the  purpose  of  spreading  scriptural 
holiness. 

Garrettson's  biographer  thinks  that  Gar- 
rettson's  parents  entirely  mistook  the  char- 
acter of  their  child,  believing  him  "prone 
to  pride,  self-will,  and  stubbornness,"  but 
what  they  deemed  pride  proved  only  a  noble, 
chivalrous  spirit,  ready  at  all  times  to  frown 
on  meanness  and  to  defend  the  oppressed, 
and  that  what  they  thought  self-will  was 
only  the  love  of  freedom  and  independence, 
and  that  his  stubbornness,  when  fully  de- 
veloped, became  decision  of  character. 

The  boy  was  early  taught  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  the  Creed,  the  Ten  Commandments, 
the  Catechism,  "and  all  other  things  which 
a  Christian  ought  to  know  and  believe  to 
his  soul's  health,"  in  accordance  with  the 


14  Freeborn  Garrettson 

parental  vows  made  at  his  baptism.  Gar- 
rettson was  always  religiously  sensitive.  He 
was  strangely  swayed  all  his  life  by  his 
"feelings."  When  he  was  but  seven  years 
of  age  he  had  an  experience  which  "sensi- 
bly moved"  him,  although  he  did  not  com- 
prehend in  the  least  measure  its  spiritual 
import.  On  another  occasion,  some  two 
years  later,  as  he  was  walking  alone  through 
the  fields  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  heard  a 
voice  saying,  "Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given 
you,"  and  he  was  immediately  drawn  out 
in  desire  to  know  what  it  meant;  and,  he 
says,  it  was  borne  in  upon  his  mind  that  this 
was  a  token  for  good,  and  he  immediately 
became  conscious  of  a  new  spirit  of  joy. 
The  Holy  Spirit  was  plainly  at  work  in  his 
heart,  though  if  some  one  had  asked  him 
concerning-  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  Paul  did  cer- 
tain disciples  at  Ephesus,  he  probably  would 
have  replied  in  the  same  terms  they  used, 
"We  have  not  so  much  as  heard  whether 
there  be  any  Holy  Ghost."  The  state  of 
religion  in  Maryland  during  Garrettson's 
boyhood  was  at  a  low  ebb,  but  as  always, 
there  were  unseen  spiritual  forces,  silent, 
mysterious,  which  were  at  work. 

Shortly    after    the    incident    mentioned 
above  he  was  again  alone  by  himself,  and 


In  the  Maryland  Wilderness        15 

once  more  a  voice  was  heard.  He  knew 
not  whence  it  came,  whether  from  the  whis- 
pering trees  or  from  the  depths  of  his  own 
heart,  but  it  was  as  plain  and  real  as  if 
spoken  by  some  friend  face  to  face  with 
him:  "Do  you  know  what  a  saint  is?"  It 
was  all  so  real  that  he  answered,  "There 
are  no  saints  on  earth  in  this  our  day" ;  and 
the  same  strange  voice  replied,  "A  saint  is 
one  who  is  wholly  given  up  to  God";  and 
instantly  he  saw  such  a  person  "in  idea," 
as  Garrettson  phrases  it,  the  most  beautiful 
that  his  eyes  had  ever  beheld !  The  vision 
so  affected  him  that  he  expressed  aloud  a 
desire  to  bear  such  a  character,  and  to  him 
there  was  given  a  "strong  assurance"  that 
such  should  be  his  experience,  and  again  a 
spirit  of  joy  flooded  his  heart. 

His  mother  died  when  he  was  about  ten 
years  of  age,  but  he  never  forgot  the  ad- 
monitions which  she  gave  him.  After  her 
going  away,  a  sorrow  which  was  followed 
by  other  griefs,  he  became  melancholy  and 
frequently  went  alone  to  weep.  A  modern 
specialist  would  likely  say  that  it  was  a 
case  of  disordered  nerves !  He  knew  that 
he  wanted  something  but  did  not  know 
what,  and  instead  of  purchasing  a  treatise 
on  medicine   bought  a  pocket  Testament, 


16  Freeborn  Garrettson 

which  he  read,  often  with  bitter  sighs  and 
broken  prayers. 

When  he  was  twelve  years  of  age  he 
went  to  school,  where,  he  says,  "I  threw  off 
all  serious  thoughts  about  another  world 
and  was  as  full  of  play  and  mischief  as 
others  of  my  age."  Though  Garrettson 
frequently  condemns  himself  and  brings 
numerous  charges  against  himself,  there  is 
nothing  to  suggest  that  he  was  openly  and 
flagrantly  sinful,  he  himself  saying,  "1  did 
not  run  into  scandalous  witness."  He  left 
school  somewhere  about  1770,  and  by  that 
time  there  was  a  good  deal  of  talk  in  Balti- 
more County  and  elsewhere  concerning 
"the  people  called  Methodists."  The  begin- 
nings of  American  Methodism  date  from 
1766,  when  Philip  Embury  began  regular 
preaching  in  the  city  of  New  York.  This 
is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  question 
whether  the  work  of  Strawbridge  in  Mary- 
land antedates  the  work  in  New  York.  The 
best  historians  in  America,  such  as  Stevens, 
than  whom  no  greater  denominational  his- 
torian has  yet  been  raised  up  among  us; 
Atkinson,  whose  researches  concerning  the 
beginnings  of  the  Wesleyan  movement  in 
America  are  both  invaluable  and  as  yet 
incontrovertible;  Wakeley,  Buckley,  Faulk- 


In  the  Maryland  Wilderness       17 

ner,  and  others  unite  in  giving  the  prefer- 
ence to  New  York.  The  date  of  Straw- 
bridge's  first  sermon  in  Maryland  may 
never  be  known,  since  the  year  of  his  ar- 
rival in  America  has  not  been  definitely  de- 
termined (Crook,  who  made  a  careful  study 
of  all  the  Irish  line  of  evidence,  does  not 
think  that  he  left  Ireland  before  1766) ; 
but  whatever  the  year  he  began,  whether 
before  or  after  Embury,  this  man  who 
founded  Methodism  in  Baltimore  and  Har- 
ford Counties  in  Maryland,  restless  by  na- 
ture, and  conscious  of  the  needs  of  the  new 
settlements  which  were  unvisited  by  the 
lethargic  clergy  of  the  English  Church,  went 
in  every  direction  preaching  with  glowing 
lips  the  sure  word  of  the  gospel.  "Every- 
where he  went  he  raised  up  preachers,"  and 
whenever  he  preached  sinners  were  con- 
verted. It  was  this  flaming  herald  who  was 
the  first  Methodist  to  be  seen  and  heard 
by  the  young  man  in  Maryland  who  had  but 
recently  returned  from  school  and  entered 
upon  a  life  of  carelessness  and  indifference. 
His  picture  of  Strawbridge  is  doubtless  the 
best  one  we  have  of  that  early  preacher: 
"Mr  Strawbridge  came  to  the  house  of  a 
gentleman  near  where  I  lived  to  stay  all 
night.     I  had  never  heard  him  preach,  but 


18  Freeborn  Garrettson 

as  I  had  a  great  desire  to  be  in  company 
with  a  person  who  had  caused  so  much  talk 
in  the  country  I  went  over  and  sat  and 
heard  him  converse  till  nearly  midnight,  and 
when  I  retired  it  was  with  these  thoughts, 
*I  have  never  spent  a  few  hours  so  agreea- 
bly in  my  life.'  He  spent  most  of  the  time 
in  explaining  Scripture  and  giving  interest- 
ing anecdotes."  And  it  is  not  thinkable 
that  that  great  winner  of  souls  would  have 
allowed  the  earnest  young  fellow  who  lis- 
tened to  him  so  eagerly  to  withdraw  without 
some  word  concerning  his  personal  salva- 
tion. 

Garrettson's  conversion  was  not  without 
signs  and  wonders,  divine  warnings  and 
divine  interpositions.  It  is  difficult  to  say 
just  when  the  process  was  begun.  In  a 
letter  to  Wesley  in  1785  he  wrote:  "This 
spring  is  fourteen  years  since  I  was  power- 
fully convinced  without  use  of  human 
means";  which  would  fix  the  date  of  his 
awakening  as  1771,  when  he  was  nineteen 
years  of  age.  In  the  same  letter  he  says, 
"It  was  three  years  from  my  conviction  be- 
fore I  was  brought  through  the  pangs  of 
the  new  birth."  During  these  years  much 
happened,  and  to  his  sensitive  soul  every 
event  had  a  spiritual  significance.    Such  en- 


In  the  Maryland  Wilderness       19 

tries  as  these  are  to  be  found  in  his  Journal, 
which  is  a  record  of  soul  disclosures  scarcely 
paralleled  in  religious  literature:  "One  day 
as  I  was  passing  over  a  rapid  stream,  a 
log  on  which  I  had  frequently  gone  gave 
way,  and  I  was  near  being  swept  down  the 
stream;  after  struggling  awhile  I  got  out, 
though  much  wounded  among  the  sharp 
rocks.  This  query  struck  my  mind  with 
great  weight,  'What  would  have  become  of 
your  soul  had  you  been  drowned?'  I  wept 
bitterly,  and  prayed  to  the  Lord  under  a 
sense  of  my  guilt.  Still  my  stubborn  heart 
was  not  willing  to  submit,  though  I  began 
to  carry  a  little  hell  in  my  bosom."  How 
strange  it  is  that  remorse  awakened  by  some 
grave  peril  so  quickly  dies  out,  and  the 
vows  made  in  moments  of  thankfulness 
over  some  deliverance  from  sudden  death 
are  soon  forgotten!  Garrettson  a  little 
later  found  himself  in  still  greater  danger. 
"In  May,  1772,  as  I  was  riding  out  one 
afternoon,  I  went  down  a  descent,  over  a 
large  broad  rock;  my  horse  stumbled  and 
threw  me ;  and  with  the  fall  on  the  rock  and 
the  horse  blundering  over  me  I  was  beaten 
out  of  my  senses.  When  I  recovered  in  some 
measure  I  praised  God,  as  well  as  I  knew 
how,  for    my   deliverance;    and  before    I 


20  Freeborn  Garrettson 

moved  from  the  place  I  promised  to  serve 
him  all  the  days  of  my  life."  He  at  once 
procured  the  best  religious  books  that  he 
could  obtain,  and  in  retirement  read  much. 
Up  to  this  time  he  had  heard  but  two  or 
three  Methodist  preachers.  He  had,  as  he 
says,  the  form  of  godliness;  fasted  once  a 
week,  prayed  frequently  daily  in  secret,  and 
attended  church  regularly,  but  whenever  he 
•went  to  hear  Methodist  preaching,  as  he  did 
now  occasionally,  his  "poor  foundations 
would  shake,"  especially  under  the  preach- 
ing of  George  Shadford.  When  Asbury 
came  into  the  country  he  went  to  hear  him, 
and  "his  doctrine  seemed  as  salve  to  a 
'festering  wound."  He  followed  the  great 
preacher  to  another  place,  with  this  result: 
"He  began  to  wind  me  about  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  I  found  my  sins  in  clusters  as  it 
were  around  me,  and  the  law  in  its  purity 
probing  to  the  very  bottom  and  discovering 
the  defects  of  my  heart;  I  was  ready  to 
cry  out,  'How  does  this  stranger  know  me 
so  well?'" 

His  father  began  to  be  troubled  concern- 
ing him,  and  one  night  talked  with  him  till 
midnight.  "I  have  no  objections,"  said  he, 
"to  your  being  religious,  but  why  should 
you  turn  from  the  Church?"     Garrettson 


In  the  Maryland  Wilderness       21 

had  already  begun  to  have,  it  would  appear, 
some  leanings  toward  the  Methodists.  One 
day  as  he  was  riding  home  he  met  a 
young  man  who  had  been  hearing  the 
Methodists,  who  talked  to  him  so  sweetly 
about  Jesus  and  his  people,  and  recom- 
mended Christ  in  such  a  winning  fashion, 
that  Garrettson  was  deeply  convinced  that 
there  was  a  reality  in  that  religion,  and  that 
it  was  time  for  him  to  take  an  open  stand. 
Another  day  he  met  with  a  zealous  Metho- 
dist exhorter  who  asked  him  if  he  had  been 
born  again.  Not  long  since  a  young  friend 
of  mine  heard  a  woman  of  another  denom- 
ination say  with  a  sneer,  "I  wouldn't  be  a 
Methodist;  why,  the  Methodists  say  you 
have  to  be  born  again."  Yes,  indeed !  But 
did  not  the  Master  also  say  that  same  thing? 
Garrettson  "could  not  easily  forget  the 
words  of  that  pious  young  man";  they 
seemed  to  him  like  spears  running  through 
him!  Thus  matters  continued  until  June, 
1775,  a  day  which  Garrettson  never  forgot. 
As  the  day  was  breaking  he  awoke, 
"alarmed  by  an  awful  voice."  "You  are 
not  prepared  to  die,"  was  the  ominous  an- 
nouncement which  was  "thundered  down" 
upon  his  soul.  Starting  from  his  pillow,  he 
cried  out,  "Lord,  if  this  be  the  case,  have 


22  Freeborn   Garrettson 

mercy  upon  me."  "In  the  evening,"  he 
says,  "it  was  strongly  pressed  on  my  mind 
to  go  and  hear  a  Methodist  sermon.  Though 
it  was  a  very  rainy  evening  I  went,  and  for 
the  first  time  heard  Brother  Ruff."  Shortly 
after  he  heard  him  again.  Daniel  Ruff  was 
one  of  the  earliest  native  preachers  raised  up 
in  America;  "honest,  simple  Daniel  Ruff," 
Asbury  called  him.  There  may  be  ground 
for  controversy  as  to  where  were  the  be- 
ginnings of  Methodism  in  America,  but 
there  can  be  no  question  as  to  where  the 
first  native  preachers  were  brought  into  the 
ranks  of  the  itinerant  ministry.  There  was 
William  Watters,  who  was  born  in  Balti- 
more County,  Maryland,  in  1751,  the  year 
before  Garrettson,  and  who  was  converted 
in  1 77 1,  and  began  to  preach  the  following 
year.  He  has  been  called  "the  first  native 
itinerant,"  though  recent  investigations 
would  seem  to  make  it  clear  that  Edward 
Evans,  one  of  Whitefield's  converts  in  Phil- 
adelphia, who  allied  himself  with  the  Metho- 
dists and  was  given  permission  to  preach, 
is  entitled  to  that  distinction,  even  though, 
dying  before  the  meeting  of  the  first  Con- 
ference in  1773,  his  name  has  no  place  on 
the  official  records  of  our  American  Metho- 
dism.   And  there  was  Philip  Gatch,  born  in 


In  the  Maryland  Wilderness       23 

Maryland  the  same  year  as  Watters,  who 
entered  the  itinerancy  and  upon  a  dis- 
tinguished career  the  same  year  as  Wat- 
ters, though  his  name  does  not  appear  in 
the  Minutes  until  1774.  And  there  was 
Daniel  Ruff,  who  was  converted  in  Harford 
County  in  the  great  religious  excitement 
which  prevailed  in  that  and  Baltimore 
County  during  1771.  The  next  year  his 
house  became  a  "preaching  place,"  and  in 
1773  he  began  his  itinerant  ministry.  It 
was  after  a  sermon  by  this  man  that  Gar- 
rettson  came  into  the  light.  Let  him  tell  the 
story  in  his  own  words:  "After  preaching 
was  over  I  called  in  with  Daniel  Ruff  at 
Mrs.  Cough's,  and  stayed  until  about  nine 
o'clock.  On  my  way  home,  being  much  dis- 
tressed, I  alighted  from  my  horse  in  a  lonely 
wood,  and  bowed  my  knee  before  the  Lord ; 
I  sensibly  felt  two  spirits,  one  on  each  hand. 
The  good  spirit  set  forth  to  my  innocent 
mind  the  beauties  of  religion,  and  I  seemed 
almost  ready  to  lay  hold  on  my  Saviour. 
Then  would  the  enemy  rise  up  on  the  other 
hand,  and  dress  religion  in  as  odious  a  garb 
as  possible ;  yea,  he  seemed  in  a  moment  of 
time  to  set  the  world  and  the  things  of  it  in 
the  most  brilliant  colors  before  me,  telling 
me  all  those  things  should  be  mine  if  I  would 


24  Freeborn  Garrettson 

give  up  my  false  notions,  and  serve  him.  I 
continued  on  my  knees  a  considerable  time, 
and  at  last  began  to  give  way  to  the  reason- 
ing of  the  enemy.  My  tender  feelings 
abated,  and  my  tears  were  gone;  my  heart 
was  hard,  but  I  continued  on  my  knees  in 
a  kind  of  meditation,  and  at  last  addressed 
my  Maker  thus:  'Lord,  spare  me  one  year 
more,  and  by  that  time  I  can  put  my  worldly 
affairs  in  such  a  train  that  I  can  serve 
thee.'  (I  seemed  as  if  I  felt  the  two 
spirits  with  me.)  The  answer  was,  'Now 
is  the  accepted  time.'  I  then  pleaded  for 
six  months,  but  was  denied ;  one  month,  no ; 
I  then  asked  for  one  week,  the  answer  was, 
'This  is  the  time.'  For  some  time  the  devil 
was  silent,  till  I  was  denied  one  week  in 
his  service ;  then  it  was  that  he  shot  a  power- 
ful dart.  'The  God,'  said  he,  'you  are  at- 
tempting to  serve  is  a  hard  master;  and  I 
would  have  you  to  desist  from  your  en- 
deavor.' Carnal  people  know  very  little  of 
this  kind  of  exercise ;  but  it  was  as  percepti- 
ble to  me  as  if  I  had  been  conversing  with 
two  people  face  to  face.  As  soon  as  this 
powerful  temptation  came  I  felt  my  heart 
rise  sensibly,  and  immediately  I  arose  from 
my  knees  with  these  words :  'I  will  take  my 
own  time,  and  then  I  will  serve  thee.'     I 


In  the  Maryland  Wilderness      25 

mounted  my  horse  with  a  hard,  unbelieving 
heart,  unwilHng  to  submit  to  Jesus.  O,  what 
a  good  God  I  had  to  deal  with !  I  might  in 
justice  have  been  sent  to  hell.  I  had  not 
rode  a  quarter  of  a  mile  before  the  Lord 
met  me  powerfully  with  these  words :  '1 
have  come  once  more  to  offer  you  life  and 
salvation,  and  it  is  the  last  time :  choose  or 
refuse.'  I  was  instantly  surrounded  with  a 
divine  power:  heaven  and  hell  were  dis- 
closed to  view,  and  life  and  death  were  set 
before  me.  I  do  believe,  if  I  had  rejected 
this  call,  mercy  would  have  been  forever 
taken  from  me.  I  knew  the  very  instant, 
when  I  submitted  to  the  Lord  and  was  will- 
ing that  Christ  should  reign  over  me :  I  like- 
wise knew  the  two  sins  which  I  parted  with 
last,  pride  and  unbelief.  I  threw  the  reins 
of  my  bridle  on  my  horse's  neck,  and  put- 
ting my  hands  together,  cried  out,  'Lord,  I 
submit.'  I  was  less  than  nothing  in  my  own 
sight,  and  was  now  for  the  first  time  recon- 
ciled to  the  justice  of  God.  The  enmity  of 
my  heart  was  slain,  the  plan  of  salvation 
was  open  to  me,  I  saw  beauty  in  the  per- 
fection of  the  Deity,  and  I  felt  the  power  of 
faith  and  love  that  I  had  ever  been  a 
stranger  to  before."  If  he  knew  that 
glorious  hymn  of  Doddridge, 


26  Freeborn  Garrettson 

" 'Tis  done:  the  great  transaction's  done! 
I  am  my  Lord's,  and  he  is  mine; 
He  drew  me  and  I  followed  on, 
Charmed  to  confess  the  voice  divine," 

he  must  have  sung  it,  for  it  is  said  that  hav- 
ing found  the  pearl  of  great  price  he  was 
exceedingly  happy,  and  began  to  shout  the 
praises  of  his  Redeemer.  Modern  con- 
versions may  be  more  decorous,  and  it  may 
be  they  are  just  as  complete,  but  when 
Garrettson,  who  had  not  run  the  gamut 
of  sin  and  shame  in  his  personal  life — our 
modern  religious  psychologists  and  advo- 
cates of  "educational  conversion"  gen- 
erously say  that  some  demonstration  on  the 
part  of  a  Jerry  McAuley  is  pardonable — 
found  God,  "the  stars  seemed  so  many 
seraphs  going  forth  in  their  Maker's  praise." 
He  praised  God  aloud.  As  he  neared  the 
house  the  servants  heard  him  shouting  and 
rushed  out  to  meet  him  in  surprise.  It  did 
not  take  them  long  to  discover  that  some- 
thing had  happened.  He  called  the  family 
together,  and  his  prayer  was  turned  into 
praise.  Temptations  soon  beset  him,  and 
for  a  time  he  was  in  perplexity.  Great 
souls  often  have  to  wade  through  deep 
waters.  But  before  many  days  passed  there 
were  indisputable  evidences  that  his  con- 


In  the  Maryland  Wilderness       27 

version  was  complete.  One  Sunday  morn- 
ing— this  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  in- 
cidents in  Garrettson's  whole  life — although 
he  was  still  unsettled  in  his  mind,  from  a 
sense  of  duty  he  summoned  the  household 
for  prayer.  "As  I  stood  with  a  book  in  my 
hand  in  the  act  of  giving  out  a  hymn" — I 
give  his  own  account  of  the  event — "this 
thought  powerfully  struck  my  mind:  'It  is 
not  right  for  you  to  keep  your  fellow  crea- 
tures in  bondage,  you  must  let  the  oppressed 
go  free.'  I  knew  it  was  that  same  blessed 
voice  which  had  spoken  to  me  before;  till 
then  I  had  never  suspected  that  the  practice 
of  slavekeeping  was  wrong ;  I  had  not  read 
a  book  on  the  subject  or  been  told  so  by 
any.  I  paused  a  minute  and  then  replied, 
'Lord,  the  oppressed  shall  go  free';  and  I 
was  as  clear  of  them  in  my  mind  as  if  I  had 
never  owned  one.  I  told  them  they  did  not 
belong  to  me,  and  that  I  did  not  desire  their 
services  without  making  them  a  compensa- 
tion. I  was  now  at  liberty  to  proceed  in 
worship.  After  singing  I  kneeled  to  pray. 
Had  I  the  tongue  of  an  angel  I  could  not 
have  fully  described  what  I  felt.  All  my 
dejection  and  that  melancholy  gloom  which 
preyed  upon  me  vanished  in  a  moment,  and 
a  divine  sweetness  ran  through  my  whole 


28  Freeborn   Garrettson 

frame."  Could  anyone  doubt  that  there 
had  been  a  real  change  of  heart  after  such 
an  unexpected  proof  of  the  sincerity  of  his 
new  purpose  ?  It  was  in  keeping,  moreover, 
with  Garrettson's  subsequent  career.  There 
at  that  home  service  was  given  the  first 
earnest  of  his  hatred  of  slavery  and  of  his 
long  fight  for  the  oppressed.  Freeborn  Gar- 
rettson was  a  new  man  in  Christ  Jesus. 
His  conversion  was  as  complete  as  that  of 
Saint  Paul,  the  currents  of  his  thought  and 
life  having  undergone  in  some  respects 
quite  as  radical  changes.  From  this  hour, 
when  it  was  borne  in  upon  him  that  some 
things  which  hitherto  he  had  considered 
right,  were  not  right,  he  submitted  all 
questions,  all  plans,  all  actions,  all  attitudes 
to  the  new  standard  which  he  found  in 
Christ  Jesus  his  Lord. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  SUMMONING  VOICE 

The  matter  of  a  call  to  the  Christian 
ministry  is  a  complex  one.  Spurgeon  used 
to  say  that  he  was  foreordained  to  be  a 
preacher,  and  it  does  seem  as  if  we  should 
make  that  concession  to  his  sturdy  Calvin- 
ism, so  remarkable  was  the  prophecy  ut- 
tered by  Richard  Knill,  a  representative 
of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  who,  a 
visitor  to  the  parsonage  in  which  Spurgeon's 
father  lived,  as  he  was  leaving  took  the  boy 
of  ten  years  on  his  knee  and  said:  "I  do 
not  know  how  it  is,  but  I  feel  a  solemn  pre- 
sentiment that  this  child  will  preach  the 
gospel  to  thousands.  So  sure  am  I  of  this 
that  when  you,  my  little  man,  preach  in 
Rowland  Hill's  Chapel,  as  you  will  one  day, 
I  should  like  you  to  give  out  the  hymn  com- 
mencing, 

"  'God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way 
His  wonders  to  perform,' " 

a  prophecy  which  years  later  was  fulfilled 

to  the  letter.    Some  men  come  into  the  min- 

29 


30  Freeborn   Garrettson 

istry,  as  Burton  says,  "by  the  pull  of  numer- 
ous forces."  Often  the  call  is  as  the  blow- 
ing of  the  wind,  something  mysterious, 
almost  intangible  even.  Again  it  is  as  potent 
as  the  luminous  cross  seen  by  Constantine 
in  his  march  to  Rome,  or  the  spirit-voices 
heard  by  Joan  of  Arc.  Horace  Bushnell 
used  to  tell  of  his  grandmother,  a  godly 
woman,  up  in  the  wilds  of  Vermont,  who 
started  a  religious  public  service,  had  her 
timid  husband  make  the  prayers,  and  called 
into  service  the  talents  of  an  unchristian 
young  man  of  the  region  for  the  reading 
of  a  printed  sennon  from  Sunday  to  Sun- 
day. After  a  time  she  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  he  had  the  making  of  a  preacher 
in  him,  and  said  to  him  one  day  as  he  came 
from  the  pulpit  that  God  wanted  him  to  be 
a  Methodist  minister.  "But  I  am  not  a 
Christian,"  he  said.  "No  matter,  you  are 
called  to  be  a  Christian  and  a  preacher  both, 
in  one  call,  as  Saul  was."  That  young  man 
was  Elijah  Hedding. 

Methodism  has  never  believed,  as  some 
good  people  seem  to  believe  these  days, 
that  "anyone  who  feels  a  turn  for  it,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  is  entitled  to 
enter  the  ministry."  It  surely  was  not  so 
in  the  early  days  of  Methodism.  .Whitefield 


The  Summoning  Voice  31 

struggled  long  and  hard  between  an  inclina- 
tion for  the  stage  and  the  conviction  that  he 
must  preach.  "I  have  prayed  a  thousand 
times,"  he  said,  "till  the  sweat  has  dripped 
from  my  face  like  rain."  It  may  be  that 
Methodism  has  stood  for  a  more  marked 
call  than  some  other  denominations,  but  it 
most  assuredly  has  believed  in  the  necessity 
of  a  distinctive  call.  The  Old  Testament,  as 
has  been  said,  is  largely  a  record  of  "calls" ; 
likewise  the  biographies  of  Methodist 
preachers.  So  far  as  I  am  familiar  with  the 
biographical  literature  of  Methodism  I  do 
not  recall  a  single  instance  where  one  of 
our  preachers  has  taken  the  field  except 
upon  command.  Bishop  Scott  testifies  that 
after  his  conversion  the  burden  of  the  Lord 
came  upon  him  and  the  Spirit  of  God  com- 
missioned him  to  preach  with  the  solemn 
words,  "Away!  Away!  labor  for  God  and 
souls." 

Thus  also  was  Freeborn  Garrettson 
called  to  preach.  It  was  not  long  after  the 
happy  experiences  of  grace  recorded  in  the 
preceding  chapter  that  he  received  "a  strong 
impression"  that  he  should  go  immediately 
to  a  certain  place  and  declare  to  those  whom 
he  might  find  there  what  the  Lord  had  done 
for  him.     He  mounted  his  horse,  went  to 


32  Freeborn   Garrettson 

the  designated  place,  found  a  company  of 
friends  and  relatives,  but  the  cross  was 
too  heavy  for  him,  and  after  remaining 
there  for  several  hours  "without  bearing 
testimony,"  he  returned  home  in  "deep  dis- 
tress of  soul."  That  was  the  beginning  of 
a  conflict  which  was  to  continue  for  nearly 
a  year  before  Garrettson's  surrender  to  God 
was  complete. 

Shortly  after  this  he  felt  it  to  be  his  duty 
to  hold  religious  meetings  in  various  places, 
principally  at  his  own  house,  and  at  that  of 
his  brother  John,  where  a  blessed  work  of 
grace  broke  out.  He  had  not  yet  joined 
the  Methodists,  though  his  leanings  were 
now  in  that  direction.  God  was  leading  him 
gradually.  He  had  read  some  of  Mr.  Wes- 
ley's writings  and  had  some  considerable 
knowledge  of  Methodist  people,  but  at  the 
beginning  of  his  Christian  life  he  felt  a 
distinct  repugnance  to  being  known  as  a 
Methodist.  It  was  his  purpose  to  nurture 
his  spiritual  life  by  monastic  fastings  and 
in  the  gloom  of  cloister  silences,  but  this 
unnatural  and  unscriptural  resolve  was  as 
swiftly  shattered  by  a  shaft  of  religious  ex- 
perience as  a  forest  tree  is  riven  by  light- 
ning. What  a  wonderful  teacher  the  Holy 
Spirit  is!      Garrettson's  opposition   to  the 


The  Summoning  Voice  33 

Methodists  shortly  began  to  melt  away.  One 
Sunday  he  went  to  the  church  where  he 
had  been  accustomed  to  worship,  and  no- 
ticed, possibly  for  the  first  time,  that  before 
the  service  the  people  "gathered  in  little 
companies,  the  old  men  talking  about  the 
price  of  grain,  their  farms  and  crops,  and 
the  younger  people  about  horse-raising  and 
the  like."  The  scene  shocked  his  sensitive 
religious  feelings,  and  the  sermon  later  con- 
vinced him  that  there  was  no  spiritual  food 
for  him  there.  That  evening  he  went,  to 
use  his  own  phrase,  "to  hear  Methodist 
preaching,"  and  it  was  of  the  sort  to  stir 
his  soul  to  its  depths,  and  he  went  home  de- 
termined "to  choose  God's  people  for  my 
people."  A  few  days  later  he  journeyed  ten 
miles  to  attend  a  class  meeting,  "and  was 
convinced  that  it  was  a  prudential  means" ; 
and  was  his  conclusion  not  a  right  one? 
The  leaven  of  God's  purpose  for  him  was 
working.  The  next  step  which  Garrettson 
was  led  to  take  was  to  invite  Mr.  Rodda,  a 
Methodist  itinerant  whom  he  had  already 
met,  to  come  to  his  house  and  preach. 
If  he  did  not  want  to  become  a  preacher — 
and  there  is  abundant  proof  that  he  did  not 
— that  was  a  dangerous  thing  for  him  to  do, 
for  those  early  Methodist  preachers  were 


34  Freeborn  Garrettson 

on  the  watch  everywhere  for  recruits.  The 
very  next  day  after  Rodda's  arrival  he  per- 
emptorily told  Garrettson  that  he  must  ac- 
company him  on  his  circuit,  which  the  young 
man  did,  exhorting  the  people  by  Rodda's 
direction.  But  at  the  end  of  nine  days  Gar- 
rettson announced  his  intention  of  return- 
ing to  his  home,  and  when  Rodda  pressed 
him  for  the  reason  Garrettson  told  him 
bluntly  that  he  "was  not  disposed  to  be  a 
traveling  preacher,"  as  if  that  settled  the 
question. 

The  details  of  Garrettson's  struggles  to 
escape  what  he  must  have  suspected  was 
the  will  of  God  for  him  would  seem  almost 
incredible  to  modern  readers.  They  were  as 
realistic  and  as  wearing  upon  his  health  as 
were  those  of  Saint  Francis.  Rankin,  hav- 
ing heard  that  his  mind  was  in  a  tumult 
respecting  the  ministry,  sent  for  him  and 
gave  him  such  salutary  advice  that  the 
storm-tossed  soul  was  comforted  for  the 
moment,  but  almost  immediately  Satan 
again  buffeted  him,  and  once  more  he  is 
in  doubt.  He  has  an  engagement  to  speak 
but  is  unwilling  to  use  a  text,  and  finds  him- 
self unable  to  speak  with  any  degree  of 
freedom.  As  he  journeyed  to  another  ap- 
pointment he   was   in   so  great  perplexity 


The  Summoning  Voice  35 

through  doubt  and  fear  that  he  even  wished 
his  horse  would  throw  him  and  thus  end  his 
hfe.  When  he  preached  in  his  native  place 
to  a  multitude  who  had  come  from  far  and 
near  to  hear  him,  just  as  he  gave  out  his 
text,  "The  great  day  of  his  wrath  is  come, 
and  who  shall  be  able  to  stand  ?"  the  burden 
of  responsibility  was  so  overpowering  that 
he  fainted  and  fell  to  the  ground.  Thus 
the  conflicts  continued  month  after  month. 
There  is  a  famous  passage  in  his  Journal 
which  shows  the  straits  he  was  in:  "It  was 
now  the  enemy  told  me  there  was  no  way 
for  me  to  prevent  or  get  clear  of  those 
itinerating  impressions  than  to  alter  my 
condition  in  life.  The  thought  was  pleas- 
ing, insomuch  that  I  employed  carpenters 
to  put  an  addition  to  my  house."  "The 
object  was  soon  fixed  on  and  I  paid  her  a 
visit,  told  her  my  mind,  and  set  a  time  when 
I  should  expect  to  know  her  mind";  but, 
as  he  quaintly  says,  "the  hand  of  the  Lord 
was  against  it" ;  for  the  night  before  he  was 
to  learn  her  decision  he  had  a  vision  of  his 
duty,  and  to  quote  his  own  words,  "When 
I  went  downstairs  I  met  the  object  in  the 
hall  and  told  her  that  I  was  convinced  that 
the  Lord  had  a  greater  work  for  me  to  do, 
and  gave  up  the  matter  and  withdrew  to 


36  Freeborn  Garrettson 

my  home."  But  not  yet  even  was  his  de- 
cision fixed.  The  enemy  of  his  peace  told 
him  that  the  more  he  went  among  the 
Methodists,  especially  the  preachers,  the 
more  his  mind  would  be  exercised  about 
traveling.  It  was  the  itinerancy  that  af- 
frighted him,  as  it  has  many  others  since 
that  day.  He  was  willing  to  preach  near 
his  home,  but  the  thought  of  wandering  up 
and  down  the  earth,  he  knew  not  where, 
appalled  him.  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Wesley  in 
1785,  nearly  ten  years  after  his  joining  the 
noble  band  of  Methodist  itinerants,  he  said, 
"Eight  months  elapsed  after  I  was  called 
to  preach  before  I  was  willing  to  leave  my 
all  and  go  out.  I  wanted  to  live  in  retire- 
ment, and  had  almost  got  my  own  consent 
to  sell  what  I  had  in  the  world  and  retire 
to  a  cell.  God  withdrew  himself  from  me. 
...  I  was  worn  away  to  a  skeleton.  .  .  . 
Strong  impressions  I  had  to  go  forth  in 
Jehovah's  name  to  preach  the  gospel.  When 
I  thought  of  it  I  was  pained  to  the  very 
heart;  it  seemed  like  death,  so  great  was 
the  sense  I  had  of  my  weakness  and 
ignorance." 

But  at  last  the  struggles  came  to  an  end. 
Let  Garrettson  himself  tell  the  story:  "One 
day  under  deep  distress  I  returned  to  my 


The  Summoning  Voice  37 

room,  and  appeared  to  be  weary  of  life. 
I  threw  myself  on  the  bed  and  within  a  few 
minutes  was  in  a  sound  sleep,  and  I  thought 
the  devil  came  into  the  room  and  was  about 
to  lay  hold  on  me.  I  thought  the  good  angel 
spoke  to  me  and  said,  'Will  you  go  and 
preach  the  gospel?'  I  cried  out,  'Lord, 
there  are  many  who  are  more  fitted  for  the 
work  than  I  am;  send  them,  for  I  am  too 
ignorant.'  The  good  angel  said,  'There  is  a 
dispensation  of  the  gospel  committed  unto 
you,  and  woe  is  unto  you  if  you  preach 
not  the  gospel.  Will  you  go  and  preach  the 
gospel?'  I  knew  it  to  be  the  voice  of  that 
same  blessed  Jesus  that  showed  me  that 
my  sins  were  forgiven  at  the  time  of  my 
conversion.  There  the  devil  was  waiting 
and  ready  to  drive  me  away.  I  cried  out, 
'Lord,  if  thou  wilt  go  with  me  I  will  go  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  or  to  the  very  mouth 
of  hell,  to  preach  the  blessed  gospel.'  In  a 
moment  I  saw  the  devil  vanish  away,  and 
I  awoke  filled  with  joy;  yea,  my  soul  was 
so  happy  and  I  had  such  a  strong  confidence 
that  I  thought  I  should  never  doubt  again. 
I  wanted  to  tell  somebody  of  the  exercise 
of  my  mind,  and  forever  adored  be  the  name 
of  the  Lord,  he  made  a  way  for  me."  The 
die  was  cast;  henceforth  for  more  than  a 


38  Freeborn   Garrettson 

half  century  he  was  to  be  a  Methodist  itin- 
erant preacher,  and  of  all  the  goodly  com- 
pany of  itinerants  there  was  no  one  who  had 
a  higher  sense  of  the  honor  which  had  been 
conferred  upon  him  by  the  divine  summons 
to  preach  the  gospel,  or  who  realized  more 
fully  the  necessity  and  import  of  such  a  set- 
ting apart  for  the  work  of  the  ministry.  In 
1816  there  was  published  "An  Open  Letter 
to  the  Rev.  Lyman  Beecher,"  in  reply  to  a 
pamphlet  written  by  him,  and  which,  it 
seemed  to  the  members  of  the  New  York 
Conference,  contained  some  animadversions 
on  the  Methodist  ministry.  The  letter  was 
written  by  Garrettson,  and  its  publication 
authorized  by  the  Conference.  In  it  he 
says,  among  other  things : 

"Had  you  pointed  out  some  Scripture 
marks  of  a  call  and  qualification  for  the  pure 
ministry,  I  should  have  thanked  you;  but 
you  seemed  to  lay  the  whole  stress  on  your 
seminaries,  regularity,  and  settlement,  all 
of  which  are  only  the  letter.  As  you  neg- 
lected the  most  important  part,  permit  me 
to  touch  on  a  few  particulars.  The  first  is, 
the  soul-regenerating  grace  of  God,  and  the 
knowledge  of  him  as  a  sin-pardoning  God. 
The  second  is,  a  call  from  God  to  the  work. 
The  third  is,  a  qualification  for  the  work. 


The  Summoning  Voice  39 

"But  how  shall  it  be  known  that  a  man 
is  called  and  qualified  for  the  work? 

"i.  He  should  have  an  evidence  of  God's 
love,  and  be  so  enlightened  respecting  divine 
things,  as  in  some  good  degree  to  under- 
stand the  spirituality  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, and  to  know  the  way  of  salvation. 
2.  A  gift  to  edify,  and  a  cordial  reception 
from  ministers  and  people,  and  to  be  made 
a  blessing  to  the  Church;  3.  A  pure  love 
for  souls;  4.  Blest  in  his  labors  in  bringing 
souls  to  Christ ;  5,  A  love  for  study,  and  a 
thirst  for  more  grace  and  wisdom;  6.  A 
humble,  pious  walk  with  God,  accompanied 
by  integrity  of  soul  in  his  work.  He  can 
say,  'Follow  me,  as  I  follow  Christ,'  giving 
evidence  to  the  flock  that  he  takes  the  over- 
sight not  for  filthy  lucre,  but  of  a  ready 
mind.  .Whom  the  blessed  God  thus  sets 
apart  to  minister  in  his  sanctuary,  he  owns 
and  blesses." 

This  was  written  forty  years  after  he  had 
heard  and  obeyed  the  Voice,  and  it  scarcely 
need  be  said  that  his  own  life  furnished  the 
most  complete  confirmation  of  his  opinions 
as  here  expressed  concerning  the  prerequi- 
site qualifications  for  a  successful  ministry. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IN  THE  SADDLE 

R\T.E  says  that  Christianity  was  saved  to 
the  world  in  the  eighteenth  century  by 
"spiritual  cavalry  who  scoured  the  country 
and  were  found  everywhere."  Stevens,  in 
his  History  of  American  Methodism,  uses 
the  same  figure  when  he  refers  to  the  Metho- 
dist itinerants  as  "evangelical  cavalry."  A 
glance  through  the  table  of  contents  of  that 
book  more  than  justifies  such  characteriza- 
tion: "Rapid  Advance  of  the  Church," 
"Methodism  Enters  Kentucky,"  "Garrett- 
son  Pioneers  Methodism  up  the  Hudson," 
"Asbury  Itinerating  in  the  South,"  "Mc- 
Kendree  Goes  to  the  West,"  "Colbert  in 
the  Wilderness,"  and  the  like.  In  every 
chapter  you  feel  the  rush  and  haste  of  those 
restless  men.  Every  page  breathes  the  re- 
sistless impulse  of  the  Methodist  evangelism. 
That  classic  of  our  Methodist  literature, 
Asbury 's  Journal,  abounds  with  references 
to  his  travels.  Day  after  day  he  writes  down 
with  wearisome  regularity,  "I  went,"  "I 
rode,"  "I  came."  During  the  forty-seven 
years  of  his  itinerant  career  he  rode  more 
40 


In  the  Saddle  41 

than  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand 
miles,  ahnost  all  of  them  on  horseback.  One 
cannot  understand  early  Methodist  history 
unless  he  reads  it  as  Asbury  and  Garrettson 
and  the  other  itinerants  traveled — in  the 
saddle.  About  the  time  that  Garrettson 
first  heard  of  the  Methodists  the  movements 
of  the  few  itinerants  who  had  already  taken 
the  field  were  so  rapid  that  it  is  with  diffi- 
culty that  we  follow  them.  Work  for  the 
year  1772  was  planned  on  a  large  scale: 
Boardman  was  to  enter  New  England, 
Wright  to  go  to  New  York,  Pilmoor  to 
attack  the  South,  and  Asbury  to  remain  in 
Philadelphia.  In  the  autumn  of  that  year 
Wesley  directed  Asbury  to  act  as  superin- 
tendent, and  immediately  the  young  leader 
started  for  the  South,  preaching  as  he  went. 
In  Baltimore  he  arranged  a  circuit  of  two 
hundred  miles,  with  twenty-four  appoint- 
ments, to  be  covered  by  him  every  three 
weeks,  and  it  was  on  one  of  these  rounds 
that  Garrettson  first  saw  and  heard  him. 
This  same  year  Wesley  sent  reinforcements 
to  America,  Thomas  Rankin  and  George 
Shad  ford,  the  former  a  Scotchman  of  rare 
energy  and  commanding  success,  the  latter 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  characters  of  early 
Methodism,  and  to  whom  Wesley  gave  the 


42  Freeborn   Garrettson 

famous  parting  injunction:  "I  let  you  loose, 
George,  on  the  great  continent  of  America; 
publish  your  message  in  the  open  face  of  the 
sun,  and  do  all  the  good  that  you  can." 

In  July,  1773,  the  first  American  Con- 
ference assembled  in  Philadelphia.  An  old 
print  shows  ten  clerically  frocked  preachers 
in  attendance:  Thomas  Rankin,  Francis 
Asbury,  Richard  Boardman,  Joseph  Pil- 
moor,  Richard  Wright,  George  Shadford, 
Captain  Thomas  Webb,  John  King,  Abra- 
ham Whitworth,  and  Joseph  Yearbry,  all 
Europeans,  and  all  bent  on  the  evangeliza- 
tion of  the  New  World.  Perhaps  the  most 
important  action  taken  at  this  Conference 
was  that  the  preachers  should  exchange  at 
the  end  of  every  six  months,  which  was  what 
Asbury  had  desired  from  the  beginning — 
"a  circulation  of  preachers" — and  undenia- 
bly one  of  the  chief  means  of  the  unpre- 
cedented growth  of  Methodism  in  its  first 
half  century.  Despite  all  the  toils  and  hard- 
ships it  involved,  the  early  preachers  re- 
garded the  itinerancy  as  one  of  the  most 
glorious  institutions  of  their  Church.  The 
history  of  the  Christian  Church  would  seem 
to  confirm  their  views.  More  than  once  has 
Christianity  been  saved  to  the  world  by 
wandering  preachers.    They  were  itinerants 


In  the  Saddle  43 

who  in  the  early  centuries  of  the  Ciiristian 
era  made  Christianity  the  dominant  rehgion. 
Eight  hundred  years  later,  when  religion 
had  become  a  stench  and  a  scandal,  and  the 
entire  hierarchical  system,  like  a  stranded 
ship,  was  breaking  in  pieces,  there  appeared 
one  day  an  itinerant.  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi, 
who  so  influenced  men  that  in  a  few  years, 
from  the  sierras  of  Spain  to  the  steppes  of 
Russia,  from  the  Tiber  to  the  Trent,  the 
Baltic  Sea  and  the  Thames,  the  old  faith 
in  its  fullest  vigor  was  preached  in  almost 
every  town  and  hamlet.  The  great  Ref- 
ormation in  the  sixteenth  century,  of  which 
John  Wycliffe  was  the  Morning  Star,  was 
heralded  by  the  preaching  of  his  itinerant 
priests ;  the  Evangelical  Revival  of  the , 
eighteenth  century  was  due  in  largest  meas- 
ure, under  the  blessing  of  God,  to  the 
chivalrous  loyalty,  the  unflagging  zeal,  the 
persistent  faith  and  toil  of  Methodist  itin- 
erants. What  heroes  they  were !  and  with/ 
what  superb  abandon  they  went  to  their  al- 
most superhuman  tasks !  Literature  does 
not  disclose  finer  specimens  of  manhood, 
nor  record  deeds  of  more  splendid  valor. 

Garrettson  entered  upon  his  long  itin- 
erant career  in  1775,  though  it  was  not  until 
the  following  year,  at  the  Conference  held 


44  Freeborn   Garrettson 

in  Baltimore,  May  21,  1776,  that  he  was 
formally  received  into  the  noble  company 
of  Methodist  itinerants,  men  who,  to  use  his 
own  expression,  were  "thrust  out"  into  the 
ministry.  Was  it  not  prophetic  that  he  who 
was  almost  literally  to  live  in  the  saddle  was 
converted  on  horseback  ?  It  would  seem  so. 
Garrettson's  first  appointment  was  to 
travel  the  Frederick  Circuit  with  Daniel 
Rodda,  where,  under  constant  buffetings  of 
Satan,  repeated  suggestions  that  he  turn 
back  home,  and  other  trials  so  great  that 
he  was  "tempted  to  envy  the  creeping  in- 
sects," he  nevertheless  preached  so  effect- 
ively that  many  were  awakened.  At  the 
end  of  six  months  he  went  to  Fairfax  Cir- 
cuit, where  he  labored  three  months,  when 
Rodda  thought  it  expedient  to  send  him 
into  the  region  known  as  New  Virginia, 
where  the  people  became  so  deeply  attached 
to  him  that  when  he  preached  his  farewell 
sermon  the  people  were  "bathed  in  tears," 
and  entreated  him  not  to  leave  them.  His 
appointment  the  next  year  was  to  the 
famous  Brunswick  Circuit,  where  he  was 
associated  with  Watters,  at  whose  "preach- 
ing house"  the  Conference  had  been  held, 
and  John  Tunnell,  who  was  received  on 
probation   this  year,   a  name    fragrant  to 


In  the  Saddle  45 

the  Methodists  of  that  early  day,  who  after 
notable  labors  in  the  Middle  States  was 
sent  in  1787  to  East  Tennessee,  where  he 
died  three  years  later,  his  brethren  bearing 
his  remains  back  over  the  mountains  that 
he  might  sleep  among  the  hills  of  Virginia. 
What  a  brotherhood  that  of  those  early 
itinerants  was !  With  what  ties  of  affection, 
a  common  purpose,  religious  fervor,  and  a 
deathless  devotion  they  were  bound  to- 
gether !  When  Garrettson  reached  his  cir- 
cuit and  began  to  preach  such  scenes  of 
grace  were  witnessed  that  the  people  felt 
him  to  be  "a  young  Shadford,"  a  significant 
characterization  inasmuch  as  a  few  years 
before  Shadford  had  swept  as  a  flame  of 
fire  through  all  that  region.  Garrettson 
now  itinerated  southward  into  North  Caro- 
lina, and  at  the  Conference  held  at  Lees- 
burg,  Virginia,  in  1778  (which  was  presided 
over  by  Watters,  the  senior  native  itinerant, 
Asbury  being  in  seclusion  because  of  the 
war  then  in  progress),  he  was  appointed  to 
Kent  Circuit,  in  Maryland.  Here  as  else- 
where during  these  troublous  years  his  faith 
was  severely  tested  by  the  opposition  which 
the  preaching  of  those  sturdy  Methodist 
itinerants  provoked,  and  by  the  prejudices 
against  the  Methodists  which  were  created 


46  Freeborn   Garrettson 

by  the  conditions,  political  and  otherwise, 
incident  to  the  Revolutionary  War.  Gar- 
rettson seems  to  have  had  almost  more 
than  his  share  of  persecution.  His  recital 
of  some  of  his  hardships  in  a  letter  written 
to  John  Wesley  from  Halifax  in  1785  reads 
like  Saint  Paul's  account  of  his  sufferings 
in  Second  Corinthians:  "Once  I  was  im- 
prisoned ;  twice  beaten,  left  on  the  highway 
speechless  and  senseless;  once  shot  at; 
guns  and  pistols  presented  at  my  breast; 
once  delivered  from  an  armed  mob  in  the 
dead  of  night  on  the  highway  by  a  sur- 
prising flash  of  lightning;  surrounded 
frequently  by  mobs;  stoned  frequently;  I 
have  had  to  escape  for  my  life  at  dead 
time  of  night."  But  he  lacked  Paul's  gift 
of  climax  or  he  could  have  told  a  more 
thrilling  story.  His  experiences  were  cer- 
tainly thrilling  enough.  Much  of  the  op- 
position was  natural.  It  was  of  the  sort 
which  is  always  stirred  up  by  the  faithful 
preaching  of  the  gospel.  Paul  met  with 
it  in  almost  every  place.  Wesley  was 
repeatedly  menaced  by  mobs.  Garrettson 
was  evil  spoken  of,  refused  permission  to 
preach,  and  annoyed  in  petty  ways. 

The  rage  of  his  enemies  oftener,  how- 
ever, took  a  more  intimidating  form.    To 


In  the  Saddle  47 

a  funeral  which  he  conducted  a  woman 
came  with  the  avowed  intention  of  shoot- 
ing him,  but  was  thwarted  of  her  design. 
At  another  service,  as  he  was  giving  out 
a  hymn,  some  twenty  roughs  rushed  at  him, 
the  ringleader  seizing  him  and  pressing  a 
pistol  against  his  breast;  but  Garrettson 
had  seen  God  in  a  dream  and  was  not  per- 
turbed. He  began  to  exhort,  and  soon  the 
entire  congregation  was  in  tears.  One 
day  while  riding  in  Queen  Anne  County, 
on  the  Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland,  a  man 
who  had  formerly  been  a  judge  intercepted 
him,  and  taking  his  horse  by  the  bridle 
began  to  beat  the  preacher  over  the  head 
and  shoulders  with  a  club,  calling  mean- 
while for  his  servants  to  assist  him.  When 
Garrettson  saw  some  of  them  coming  with 
a  rope  he  thought  it  time  to  beat  a  retreat, 
which  fortunately  he  was  able  to  do,  only 
to  be  overtaken  a  little  later  and  so  cruelly 
beaten  that  he  fell  from  his  horse  un- 
conscious. Providentially,  as  he  says,  a 
woman  who  had  a  lancet  with  her  passed, 
and,  bleeding  him,  as  was  the  custom,  he 
was  restored  to  his  senses,  though  it  was 
supposed  for  a  time  that  his  injuries  would 
prove  fatal.  One  of  his  friends  was  shot, 
but  not  mortally,  for  entertaining  him.   He 


48  Freeborn  Garrettson 

himself  was  in  constant  peril.  At  Dover, 
Delaware,  he  had  scarcely  dismounted  be- 
fore he  was  surrounded  by  a  mob,  who 
cried  lustily,  "Hang  him!  hang  him!" 
When  he  made  an  appointment  to  preach 
at  the  side  of  a  river  he  was  threatened 
with  drowning,  but  one  "dressed  like  a 
soldier"  attended  him  on  his  journey,  saying 
to  him,  "I  heard  you  preach  at  such  a  time, 
and  believe  your  doctrine  to  be  true.  I 
heard  you  were  to  be  abused  at  the  river 
to-day,  and  I  equipped  myself  and  have 
ridden  twenty  miles  in  your  defense,  and 
will  go  with  you  if  it  is  a  thousand  miles 
and  see  who  dare  lay  a  hand  upon  you !" 

Garrettson's  severest  trials,  however, 
were  not  the  issue  of  his  religious  activity, 
but  in  consequence  of  his  refusal  on  consci- 
entious grounds  to  take  the  "state  oath" 
as  it  was  called,  that  is,  an  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  United  States  of  America,  as  re- 
quired of  all  citizens  when  the  war  with 
Great  Britain  was  begun.  He  declared 
himself  a  loyal  American  and  a  friend  to 
the  cause  of  freedom,  but  when  he  refused 
to  take  the  oath  because  he  thought  it  was 
so  worded  as  to  bind  him  to  take  up  arms 
when  called  upon — and  he  felt  no  dispo- 
sition to  bear  "carnal  weapons" — he  was 


In  the  Saddle  49 

told  that  he  must  leave  the  State,  or  go  to 
jail.  The  fact  that  he  was  a  Methodist 
preacher  augmented  the  feeling  against 
him.  All  the  Methodists  were  under  sus- 
picion throughout  the  war,  and  particularly 
during  the  early  years ;  there  were  good 
reasons  for  it.  Wesley's  "Calm  Address 
to  the  American  Colonies"  would  have 
created  prejudice  against  them  if  nothing 
else  had  been  said  or  done,  but  several  of 
the  preachers  were  indiscreet.  Rankin 
spoke  so  freely  and  imprudently  on  public 
affairs  as  to  cause  fear  that  his  influence 
would  be  dangerous  to  the  American  cause. 
Rodda  was  so  unwise  as  to  distribute 
copies  of  the  king's  proclamation,  and  left 
the  country  under  circumstances  unfavora- 
ble to  his  reputation  and  hurtful  to  the 
interests  of  religion.  When  the  times  were 
about  at  the  worst  Shad  ford  returned  to 
England,  and,  indeed,  two  years  after  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  not  an  Eng- 
lish preacher  remained  in  America  except 
Asbury,  who,  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  de- 
liberately resolved  to  continue  to  labor  and 
to  suffer  with  and  for  his  American 
brethren.  His  sympathies  were  undoubt- 
edly with  his  countrymen,  but  his  unerring 
judgment,  however,  foresaw  the  inevitable 


50  Freeborn   Garrettson 

outcome.  Lednum  tells  of  a  letter  which 
Asbury  wrote  to  Rankin  in  1777  in  which 
he  expressed  his  belief  that  the  American 
people  would  become  a  free  and  independ- 
ent nation,  and  declared  that  he  was  too 
much  knit  in  affection  to  many  of  them  to 
leave  them,  and  that  Methodist  preachers 
had  a  great  work  to  do  under  God  in 
America.  The  letter  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  authorities  in  the  Colonies  and  pro- 
duced a  change  in  their  feelings  toward 
him,  but  before  this  change  took  place  there 
was  much  suffering. 

It  was  asserted  that  the  Methodist  body 
was  a  Tory  propaganda,  though  I  can  find 
no  proof  to  establish  the  contention.  In 
New  York  the  leading  members  were 
thorough  Loyalists;  elsewhere  the  member- 
ship was  divided  in  political  sentiment,  as 
were  all  communities  at  the  time;  but  it  is 
an  indisputable  fact  that  the  prejudice 
against  the  Methodists  was  pronounced, 
and  this  prejudice  was  evidenced  in  much 
hostility.  Jesse  Lee,  our  first  historian, 
says:  "If  a  person  was  disposed  to  perse- 
cute a  Methodist  preacher  it  was  only  nec- 
essary to  call  -him  a  Tory  and  then  they 
might  treat  him  as  cruelly  as  they  pleased." 
Judge  White  was  arrested  on  the  charge 


In  the  Saddle  51 

of  being  a  Methodist,  and  presumptively  a 
Tory,  but  after  five  weeks'  detention  was 
acquitted.  Asbury  was  compelled  to  go 
into  retirement  for  many  months;  part  of 
the  time  in  almost  absolute  concealment. 
The  native  ministers  who  had  been  raised 
up,  Watters,  Gatch,  Morrell,  Ware,  and 
Garrettson,  were  true-hearted  Americans, 
and  while  the  moral  views  and  conscien- 
tious scruples  of  some  of  these,  and  many 
other  Methodists,  were  not  on  general 
principles  favorable  to  war,  they  were  con- 
sistently loyal,  even  though  many  of  them 
suffered  persecution.  It  was  a  common 
experience  for  the  preachers  to  be  "hon- 
ored" with  tar  and  feathers.  Caleb  Pedi- 
cord  was  cruelly  whipped,  and  carried  his 
scars  to  the  grave.  Joseph  Hartley  was  im- 
prisoned, and  during  his  confinement 
preached  through  the  gratings  of  his  win- 
dow to  crowds  of  people.  In  many  places 
our  preachers  were  insulted,  beaten,  and 
maimed.  Garrettson,  because  of  his  re- 
fusal to  subscribe  to  the  oath,  was  the 
object  of  more  frequent  attacks  than  any 
other  preacher  of  the  time.  But  he  was 
without  personal  fear,  and  when  friends 
at  Salisbury,  knowing  that  a  mob  was  lying 
in  wait  for  him,  urged  him  to  escape,  his 


52  Freeborn   Garrettson 

answer  was,  "I  have  come  to  preach  my 
Master's  gospel,  and  I  am  not  afraid  to 
trust  him  with  body  and  soul."  On  another 
occasion  a  company  of  twelve  men  made 
him  a  prisoner  and  started  to  take  him  to 
jail  some  distance  away.  While  they  were 
en  route,  suddenly  the  darkness  of  the 
night  was  shattered  with  "a  very  uncom- 
mon flash  of  lightning,  and  in  less  than  a 
minute  all  my  foes  were  dispersed."  But 
finally,  in  1780,  he  was  taken  before  a 
magistrate  in  Dorchester  County,  Mary- 
land, and  put  in  jail  at  Cambridge,  the  keys 
being  hidden  to  prevent  his  friends  from 
ministering  to  him.  "I  had  a  dirty  floor 
for  my  bed,"  he  writes,  "my  saddlebags 
for  my  pillow,  and  two  large  windows  open 
with  a  cold  east  wind  blowing  upon  me, 
but  I  had  great  consolation  in  my  dear 
Lord  and  could  say,  'Thy  will  be  done.' " 
But  he  was  by  no  means  forsaken,  Asbury 
wrote  "to  comfort  him  under  his  imprison- 
ment," and  sent  him  a  volume  of  Ruther- 
ford's letters.  He  also  interceded  for  him, 
visiting  the  governor  of  Maryland  on  his 
behalf,  with  the  result  that  Garrettson  was 
soon  set  at  liberty.  Like  Chrysostom  he 
could  say,  "I  bless  God  that  I  am  not 
afraid   of  the   jail."     Whatever  happened 


In  the  Saddle  53 

to  him  was  for  the  furtherance  of  the 
gospel.  As  he  once  wrote  after  he  had 
been  stoned,  "This  is  but  trifling  if  I  can 
win  souls  to  Jesus."  This  period  of  trial 
for  Garrettson  and  the  other  preachers 
was  not  without  fruitage.  Stevens  says 
that  not  only  did  the  Revolution  prepare 
the  societies  for  their  organization  as  a  dis- 
tinct denomination,  but  it  can  be  affirmed 
that  American  Methodism  was  born  and 
passed  its  whole  infancy  in  the  invigorating 
struggle  of  the  Revolution,  and  that  its 
almost  continual  growth  in  such  apparent 
adverse  circumstances  is  one  of  the  marvels 
of  religious  history.  To  this  growth  Gar- 
rettson contributed  his  full  share,  both  in 
the  heroic  endurance  of  the  trials  which 
awaited  him  in  every  place  and  in  the 
abundance  of  his  labors  and  the  zeal  and 
success  with  which  he  prosecuted  the  work 
to  which  he  had  consecrated  his  life. 

His  labors  during  this  period  were  tre- 
mendous, despite  the  grave  impediments  in 
his  way.  For  instance,  when  he  went  to 
Sussex  Circuit  in  1781,  Cornwallis  was 
harassing  the  people  of  Virginia  with  his 
army,  a  condition  unfriendly  to  the  spread 
of  Christianity.  As  this  was  the  time  of  the 
siege  and  surrender  of  Cornwallis  at  York- 


54  Freeborn   Garrettson 

town,  he  could  hear  the  roar  of  cannon  day 
and  night.  Lednum,  an  historian  of  Metho- 
dism, says  that  as  the  sum  of  this  particular 
year's  labor  Garrettson  traveled  about  five 
thousand  miles  and  preached  some  five 
hundred  sermons.  These  figures  need  not 
surprise  us  when  the  urgency  of  that  early 
Methodist  evangelism  is  recalled.  Sin  was 
an  appalling  fact,  souls  were  in  peril,  the 
day  of  judgment  was  drawing  on,  men 
must  be  warned  of  their  danger  and  told 
of  a  Saviour,  and  so  Garrettson  pushed  on. 

Thus  from  1775  till  1784  he  traveled  and 
preached  in  Maryland,  Virginia,  Delaware, 
New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and  North  Caro- 
lina, finding  formalism  and  sin,  churches 
abandoned  and  going  to  decay,  and  lost 
sheep,  and  leaving  extensive  circuits,  vig- 
orous societies,  and  people  who  blessed  God 
for  sending  his  servant  among  them;  aid- 
ing in  a  multitude  of  ways,  more  than  any 
man  of  the  times,  save  Asbury,  to  give 
character  and  success  to  the  denomination 
from  New  Jersey  to  South  Carolina.  In 
September,  1784,  when  on  the  point  of  de- 
parting for  this  last-named  State,  that  he 
might  press  the  battle  to  the  gates  of  the 
far  South,  Dr.  Coke,  who  had  been  em- 
powered by   Mr.   Wesley  to  organize   the 


In  the  Saddle  55 

American  societies  into  an  independent 
Church,  arrived  in  America,  and  his  com- 
ing, together  with  the  rush  of  the  impor- 
tant events  which  followed,  indefinitely 
postponed  his  proposed  expedition.  When 
Coke  had  met  Garrettson  in  Delaware,  and 
had  conferred  with  Asbury  and  other 
preachers,  and  it  had  been  decided  to  call 
a  General  Conference  at  Baltimore,  he 
wrote  in  his  Journal :  "Here  I  met  with  an 
excellent  young  man,  Freeborn  Garrettson. 
He  seems  all  meekness  and  love,  and  yet 
all  activity.  He  makes  me  quite  ashamed, 
for  he  invariably  rises  at  four  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  not  only  he  but  several  others  of 
the  preachers.  Him  we  sent  ofif,  like  an 
arrow,  from  north  to  south,  directing  him 
to  send  messengers  to  the  right  and  left 
and  to  gather  all  the  preachers  together 
at  Baltimore  on  Christmas  Eve."  And  this 
the  appointed  herald  of  the  Christmas  Con- 
ference did.  "I  set  out  for  Virginia  and 
Carolina,"  he  writes,  "and  a  tedious  journey 
I  had.  My  dear  Master  enabled  me  to  ride 
about  twelve  hundred  miles  in  about  six 
weeks;  and  preach  going  and  coming  con- 
stantly. The  Conference  began  on  Christ- 
mas Day." 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  MISSIONARY 

The  day  before  Christmas,  1784,  there 
might  have  been  seen  riding  along  a  road 
leading  into  Baltimore  a  cavalcade  more 
interesting  in  some  ways  than  Chaucer's 
Canterbury  pilgrims.  There  was  not  to  be 
seen  such  diversity  of  dress  as  shown  in 
Stothard's  picture  of  that  famous  English 
band  of  pilgrims,  for  this  Maryland  pro- 
cession was  made  up  of  soberly  dressed 
Methodist  preachers,  who  had  been  guests 
of  Henry  Dorsey  Gough,  a  man  of  large 
wealth,  whose  home.  Perry  Hall,  some 
twelve  miles  from  the  city,  was  for  years 
both  a  preaching  place  and  haven  of  rest 
for  the  itinerants.  These  were  serious  men 
who  were  riding  that  day  from  Perry  Hall 
into  Baltimore,  for  they  were  about  to  en- 
gage in  the  most  important  conference  of 
Methodist  preachers  ever  held  in  America; 
confident  of  divine  guidance,  for  hitherto 
had  Jehovah  helped  them;  audacious  be- 
cause a  continent  now  free  stretched  out  be- 
fore them  to  be  taken  for  Christ.  At  ten 
o'clock  the  next  morning  the  first  session 
56 


The  Missionary  57 

of  the  famous  Christmas  Conference  as- 
sembled. Coke,  as  Wesley's  representative, 
was  in  the  chair.  Of  a  total  of  eighty  or 
more  preachers  nearly  sixty  were  present, 
and  of  these  we  know  the  names  of  twenty- 
nine. 

Beyond  question  the  most  conspicuous 
figure  was  Francis  Asbury,  who  had  been 
picked  by  Wesley  for  the  general  superin- 
tendency,  but  there  were  other  men  present 
equally  worthy  of  notice,  as,  for  instance, 
Whatcoat  and  Vasey,  recently  arrived  in 
America,  accredited  messengers  of  Wesley; 
Reuben  Ellis,  "an  excellent  counselor  and 
steady  yokefellow  in  Jesus" ;  Edward 
Dromgoole,  an  Irishman  and  a  converted 
Romanist;  John  Haggerty,  a  trophy  of 
John  King's  zeal,  and  who  could  preach 
both  in  English  and  in  German;  William 
Gill,  pronounced  by  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush, 
the  eminent  physician,  "the  greatest  divine 
he  had  ever  heard";  Thomas  Ware,  after- 
ward the  founder  of  the  denomination  in 
New  Jersey,  and  a  successful  preacher  for 
a  half  century;  Francis  Poythress,  who  the 
year  previous  had  borne  the  standard  across 
the  Alleghanies ;  Joseph  Everett,  "the 
roughest-spoken  preacher  that  ever  stood 
in  the  itinerant  ranks";  Le  Roy  Cole,  who 


58  Freeborn  Garrettson 

was  to  live  long,  preach  much,  and  do  mucK 
good;  William  Glendenning,  an  erratic 
Scotchman;  Nelson  Reed,  small  of  stature 
but  mighty  in  spirit;  James  O'Kelly,  then 
a  most  laborious  and  popular  evangelist 
but  later  a  rebellious  controversialist;  John 
Dickins,  one  of  the  ablest  scholars  of  early 
Methodism;  William  Black,  the  first  apostle 
to  Nova  Scotia,  who  had  come  to  plead  for 
helpers;  Caleb  Boyer  and  Ignatius  Pigman, 
the  former  the  Saint  Paul  and  the  latter 
the  Apollos  of  the  denomination;  Jonathan 
Forrest,  who  was  to  be  privileged  to  see 
the  Church,  which  in  this  historic  assembly 
he  helped  to  found,  increase  from  about 
I5,(X)0  members  to  1,000,000,  and  from 
80  or  more  traveling  preachers  to  over 
4,000;  and  Freeborn  Garrettson,  tall,  broad- 
shouldered,  high-browed,  grave  but  with 
a  kindly  smile,  serene  and  self-poised,  and 
as  worthy  as  any  of  these  named  or  any  of 
the  others  present  to  sit  in  this  first  great 
Conference  of  the  Church. 

It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  my  purpose 
to  tell  of  the  momentous  work  of  this  Con- 
ference beyond  indicating  somewhat  of  its 
significance  to  Garrettson,  and  as  denoting 
his  right  to  be  counted  among  the  makers  of 
our  Methodism.     After   a  great  battle  in 


The  Missionary  59 

which  the  carnage  had  been  fearful  and  the 
valor  and  heroism  of  the  soldiers  were  sub- 
lime, the  victorious  commander  presented 
to  the  survivors  a  medal  with  the  name  of 
the  battle  and  the  simple  inscription,  "I  was 
there."     Freeborn  Garrettson  was  present  I 
when  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  was  ) 
organized,   its  name  determined   upon,   its  / 
first   bishops   consecrated,   and    where    he 
himself  was   ordained   an   elder,  and  was 
likewise   present   at  practically    every   im-  ' 
portant  gathering  in  the   interests   of  the 
Church    from   that  notable   day  until   his 
death  in  1827. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  itinerancy  as 
organized  at  the  Christmas  Conference  was 
a  great  missionary  system,  and  this  is  true. 
But  Methodism  from  the  beginning  was 
missionary  in  spirit.  Others  besides  its 
great  founder  felt  that  the  world  was 
Methodism's  parish.  How  else  can  the 
coming  of  Boardman,  Pilmoor,  Rankin, 
Shad  ford,  Asbury,  and  others  to  these  far- 
away shores  be  explained  ?  George  White- 
field  crossed  the  Atlantic  thirteen  times. 
Thomas  Coke  sailed  almost  every  sea,  and 
was  buried  in  the  Indian  Ocean.  The  sense 
of  responsibility  and  the  faith  of  those 
Methodist  pioneers  knew  neither  barriers 


60  Freeborn  Garrettson 

nor  limitations.  Their  field  was  the  world. 
Christ  had  died  for  all  men.  How  absurd 
would  have  sounded  to  them  any  talk  about 
a  "home  field"  or  a  "foreign  field"!  In 
their  Bible  they  read  only  world-state- 
ments— "God  so  loved  the  world,"  "Go  ye 
into  all  the  world" ;  and  to  them,  as  it  must 
be  to  us,  the  missionary  appeal  was  a  world- 
appeal.  Whoever  lifts  an  honest  voice  in 
Christ's  name  in  whatever  place  stands  at 
the  center.  With  those  early  Methodist 
preachers  it  was  not  so  much  where  they 
labored  as  how  successfully.  They  were 
men  who  were  willing  to  work  anywhere, 
if  they  could  help  along  the  kingdom.  So 
when  John  Wesley  in  the  Leeds  Conference 
in  1769  said,  "We  have  a  pressing  call  from 
our  brethren  at  New  York;  who  is  willing 
to  go?"  he  was  not  required  to  repeat  the 
question. 

It  was  very  natural,  therefore,  that  at  the 
Christmas  Conference  the  eyes  of  those 
missionary  preachers  should  be  upon  the 
far  horizons,  and  that  when  William  Black, 
a  Yorkshireman,  through  whose  efforts  in 
1780  Methodism  had  been  started  in  Nova 
Scotia,  told  of  the  prosperity  of  Zion  in  that 
land  of  snow  and  frost,  and  declared  he 
must  have  help,  the  Conference  was  sympa- 


The  Missionary  61 

thetic  with  his  plea  and  appointed  Freeborn 
Garrettson  and  James  O.  Cromwell  to  that 
growing  work.  These  men  received  their 
appointment  with  unfeigned  joy,  and  em- 
barked about  the  middle  of  February,  1785. 
They  reached  Halifax  after  a  stormy 
voyage  of  two  weeks,  found  some  "true 
friends  of  the  gospel,"  one  of  whom  hired 
a  house  for  public  worship,  and  within  a 
week  Garrettson  had  formed  a  society,  con- 
sisting of  six  or  seven  members,  Crom- 
well soon  went  to  Shelburne,  Garrettson 
remaining  at  Halifax,  but  with  the  idea  of 
making  a  tour  through  the  country  later. 
He  remained  in  this  difficult  field  for  two 
years,  in  constant  peril  from  the  difficulties 
and  dangers  of  an  unsettled  country  and 
from  the  severities  of  the  weather.  Joshua 
Marsden,  of  the  Wesleyan  Conference, 
who  went  to  Nova  Scotia  in  1800,  in  his 
"Narrative"  of  the  mission  says:  "Those 
who  are  accustomed  only  to  the  cold  of 
England  cannot  conceive  of  the  intense! 
severity  of  the  winters  in  Nova  Scotia;  the 
snow  is  often  from  four  to  six  feet  deep; 
the  ice  upon  the  rivers  is  two  feet  thick ;  the 
cold  penetrates  the  warmest  rooms,  the 
warmest  clothes,  and  will  render  torpid  the 
warmest  constitutions;  it  often  freezes  to 


62  Freeborn  Garrettson 

death  those  who  lose  their  way  in  the  woods, 
or  get  bewildered  in  the  thick  and  blinding 
fury  of  a  snowdrift."  But  perils  and  dis- 
comforts were  the  common  lot  of  the  Metho- 
dist itinerants,  and  they  were  never  daunted 
by  them.  Garrettson  had  a  rough  time  in 
Nova  Scotia,  once  nearly  losing  his  life  in  a 
snowstorm,  and  again  in  crossing  a  swollen 
river.  What  a  striking  account  of  this  period 
this  is :  "After  visiting  the  cities  and  towns 
and  traversing  the  mountains  and  valleys, 
frequently  on  foot,  with  a  knapsack  to  my 
back,  up  Indian  paths  in  the  wilderness 
where  it  was  not  expedient  to  take  a  horse, 
and  having  frequently  to  wade  through 
morasses  leg-deep  in  mud  and  water,  and 
having  frequently  to  satisfy  hunger  with  a 
piece  of  bread  and  pork  from  my  knapsack, 
and  to  quench  my  thirst  from  the  brook, 
and  to  rest  my  weary  limbs  in  a  solitary 
wilderness  on  the  leaves  of  the  trees,  I  may 
truly  say  I  went  forth  weeping,  but  thank 
God  he  was  with  me,  and  in  every  place  his 
power  was  felt,  and  I  may  say  souls  were 
awakened  and  converted  to  God,  and 
though  I  had  to  depend  upon  my  private 
funds  for  clothing  and  traveling  expenses, 
under  my  views  of  the  prosperity  of  Zion 
I  felt  myself  amply  compensated  for  all  my 


The  Missionary  63 

toil  and  never  for  a  moment  regretted  the 
hardship  of  my  lot  in  that  cold,  wild  coun- 
try." He  returned  to  the  United  States  in 
the  spring  of  1787  by  direction  of  Mr. 
Wesley,  leaving  a  small  Conference  of 
preachers  and  some  six  hundred  members, 
all  of  whom  were  attached  to  him  and  de- 
sired his  return.  There  is  a  pathetic  touch 
in  the  closing  sentence  of  his  Journal  of 
his  missionary  life  in  this  barren  land :  "My 
little  funds  were  so  reduced  I  had  to  sell 
part  of  my  little  traveling  library,  and  after 
all  when  I  came  to  my  native  place  I  had 
but  one  guinea  left."  Buckley,  in  his  His- 
tory of  Methodism,  says  that  "Garrettson's 
influence  in  Nova  Scotia  was  almost  equal 
to  that  of  Wesley  in  Europe  and  Asbury 
in  the  United  States" ;  and  the  influence  of 
these  years  in  the  mission  field  of  Nova 
Scotia  upon  himself  was  quite  as  pro- 
nounced. All  through  his  long  life  he  dis- 
played the  spirit  of  a  missionary,  and  one 
of  the  last  acts  of  his  life  was  to  make  a 
bequest,  the  income  of  which  would  be  suf- 
ficient to  support  a  single  missionary,  as  he 
expressed  it,  until  the  millennium. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  NEW  YORK  CONFERENCE 

While  Garrettson  must  ever  be  regarded 
as  one  of  the  guiding  and  molding  person- 
alities in  giving  a  formative  character  to 
American  Methodism  in  general,  he  was  in 
a  large  and  peculiar  sense  the  founder  of 
Methodism  in  the  region  extending  north- 
ward from  New  York  city,  even  as  far  as 
Canada,  and  continued  the  conspicuous 
representative  of  that  whole  territory  for 
thirty  years.  The  story  of  how  he  came 
to  lead  the  hosts  of  God  in  this  particular 
part  of  the  field  of  battle  glows  with 
romance  and  abounds  with  indications  of 
the  divine  purpose. 

We  have  just  seen  how  he  left  Nova 
Scotia  at  the  bidding  of  Mr.  Wesley,  who 
had  a  high  opinion  of  the  young  missionary 
and  held  him  in  much  affection.  His  letters 
to  him  read  like  those  of  Paul  to  Timothy, 
and  Garrettson  in  his  replies  signed  himself 
"Your  affectionate  though  unworthy  son." 
It  was  Mr.  Wesley's  wish  that  Garrettson 
should  be  made  the  superintendent,  or 
bishop,  of  the  Methodist  societies  in  the 
64 


The  New  York  Conference       65 

British  dominions  in  America,  and  through 
Dr.  Coke  intimated  his  desire  to  the  Con- 
ference held  in  Bakimore  in  May,  1787, 
and  at  which  Garrettson  was  present.  The 
proposal  was  apparently  received  with 
warm  approval  by  the  members  of  the  Con- 
ference. Garrettson,  when  asked  by  Bishop 
Coke  if  he  would  accept  the  appointment, 
replied  that  he  would  upon  certain  con- 
ditions, namely,  that  he  would  visit  the 
lands  in  question,  and  if  cordially  received 
would  return  to  the  next  Conference  for 
ordination  to  the  office  of  superintendent. 
Whereupon  Coke  gave  him  a  commenda- 
tory letter  to  the  brethren  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  Garrettson  made  his  plans  to 
start  as  soon  as  the  Conference  adjourned. 
He  was  absent  from  the  Conference  for  a 
time,  and  during  his  absence  something 
happened,  for  when  the  appointments  were 
read,  to  his  utter  bewilderment  he  found 
himself  presiding  elder  of  the  work  in  the 
Peninsula,  the  scene  of  his  earlier  labors. 

What  happened  or  why  will  probably 
never  be  known;  it  is  one  of  the  mysteries 
of  our  denominational  history.  The  change 
in  the  mind  of  the  Conference  created  much 
discussion  at  the  time,  but  the  reason  for 
it  was  never  given.    Bangs  attempts  a  solu- 


66  Freeborn   Garrettson 

tion  in  this  fashion:  "Probably  knowing  the 
vakie  of  his  services  in  the  Lord's  vine- 
yard, and  being  comparatively  young  as  a 
Church,  they  were  unwilling  to  have  him 
so  entirely  separated  from  them."  That 
may  have  been  the  reason,  but  I  am  in- 
clined to  believe  as  being  more  probable 
that  they  refused  the  appointment  because 
Wesley  and  Coke  both  desired  it.  That 
Conference  was  not  cordially  sympathetic 
with  the  expressed  wishes  of  Wesley  and 
Coke ;  it  was  even  hostile  at  times.  Most 
of  the  members  were  out  of  sorts  with  Dr. 
Coke  for  what  they  regarded  as  his  "ar- 
bitrariness," and  because  of  his  propensity, 
as  some  thought,  to  stir  up  strife  among 
the  preachers.  Lee,  our  first  Methodist 
historian,  says,  "The  Doctor  saw  that  the 
preachers  were  pretty  generally  united 
against  him,  acknowledged  his  faults, 
begged  pardon,  and  promised  not  to  med- 
dle with  [their]  afifairs  again  when  out  of 
the  United  States." 

There  was  also  discussion,  at  times  bit- 
ter, at  this  Conference,  as  to  the  relations 
of  the  American  Methodists  to  Wesley,  the 
outcome  of  which  gave  him  great  ofifense. 
He  wanted  Whatcoat  to  be  made  joint 
superintendent     with     Asbury,     but     the 


The  New  York  Conference       67 

preachers  would  have  none  of  it  and 
voted  against  it.  It  would  seem  as  if  those 
preachers  were  in  no  mood  to  support  any- 
thing which  either  he  or  Dr.  Coke  pro- 
posed. They  were  friendly  to  Garrettson, 
but  unfriendly  to  his  sponsors.  Garrettson 
was  confessedly  disappointed  and  annoyed, 
but  in  later  years  he  must  have  blessed  God 
many,  many  times  that  the  Conference 
took  the  action  which  it  did.  How  often\ 
it  transpires  that  our  greatest  happiness/ 
is  to  be  found  in  the  shadow  of  our^ 
most  grievous  disappointments !  Had  he 
gone  to  the  West  Indies,  in  all  human  prob- 
abilities he  never  would  have  met,  as  he 
did  a  short  time  later,  the  gracious  woman 
who  in  1793  became  his  wife,  and  there- 
after was  his  companion  and  helpmeet  in 
the  highest  sense.  Nor  would  he  likely 
have  been  assigned  to  the  work  which 
yielded  the  largest  returns  of  his  entire 
ministry,  and  with  which  his  name  will 
always  be  associated. 

It  all  came  about  in  this  way :  After  hav- 
ing spent  three  months  in  the  Peninsula, 
at  the  particular  request  of  Bishop  Asbury 
Garrettson  set  out  for  Boston  to  open  the 
work  in  that  region,  and  it  was  by  the 
merest  chance  tliat  not  he  but  Jesse  Lee 


68  Freeborn   Garrettson 

became  the  Apostle  to  New  England. 
When  on  his  journey  he  reached  New 
York  he  found  John  Dickins  in  poor 
health,  and  Woolman  Hickson,  the  other 
stationed  preacher  there,  at  the  point  of 
death.  The  situation  was  so  critical  that 
he  consented  to  remain  and  take  charge  of 
the  society  until  Conference,  which  met 
that  year  in  Old  John  Street  Church,  being 
the  first  to  be  held  in  New  York.  It  was 
an  important  session.  There  were  urgent 
requests  for  preachers  for  many  new 
places.  It  providentially  happened  that 
"many  young  itinerants,  stalwart,  and 
flaming  with  the  zeal  of  the  gospel,  had 
appeared  in  the  field  about  New  York," 
and  at  the  request  of  Bishop  Asbury  Gar- 
rettson was  asked  to  take  charge  of  the 
band  and  "to  extend  the  march  of  the 
Church  up  the  Hudson."  This  appoint- 
ment made  Garrettson  "very  uneasy  in 
mind,"  and  he  prayed  for  direction.  God 
answered  him  in  a  dream.  It  was  a  won- 
derful vision.  "It  seemed,"  he  says,  "as 
if  the  whole  country  up  the  North  River, 
east  and  west,  even  as  far  as  Lake  Cham- 
plain,  was  laid  open  to  my  view.  The  next 
day  I  requested  the  young  men  to  meet 
me,  and  I  told  each  of  them  where  to  begin 


The  New  York  Conference       69 

and  the  way  they  were  to  go  in  forming 
their  circuits,  and  I  told  them  that  I  should 
go  on  to  the  extreme  parts  of  the  work, 
visiting  the  towns  and  cities,  and  on  my 
return  I  should  visit  them  and  hold  their 
quarterly  meetings,  and  I  had  such  a  strong 
confidence  in  God  that  there  would  be  a 
work  that  I  appointed  a  time  for  each 
quarterly  meeting  and  requested  the 
preachers  to  take  a  public  collection  at 
every  place  where  they  preached.  Ac- 
cordingly, on  my  return  I  found  my  expec- 
tations fully  answered,  for  the  Lord  was 
with  the  young  men  and  began  a  glorious 
work,  and  their  little  salary  was  nearly 
made  up  at  the  first  quarterly  meetings, 
and  before  winter  set  in  they  all  had  com- 
fortable circuits."  The  members  of  this 
glorious  company  of  intrepid  and  success- 
ful pioneers  were  Peter  Moriarty,  who  of- 
ficiated at  Garrettson's  wedding,  six  years 
later;  Albert  Van  Nostrand,  Andrew  Har- 
pending,  Cornelius  Cooke,  whose  last  will 
and  testament,  by  which  he  committed  his 
son  to  the  care  of  Bishop  Asbury  to  be 
educated  at  Cokesbury  College,  with  funds 
for  the  purpose,  is  in  my  possession ;  Sam- 
uel J.  Talbot,  Darius  Dunham,  David  Ken- 
dall, Lemuel  Smith,  and  Samuel  Wigton. 


70  Freeborn   Garrettson 

As  was  to  be  expected,  their  energetic 
heralding  of  the  gospel  provoked  discussion 
and  started  vague  rumors.  One  startled 
man  said :  "I  know  not  from  whence  they 
come,  unless  from  the  clouds."  Others 
said,  "They  seem  to  be  good  men";  still 
others,  "Nay,  they  are  deceivers  of  the 
people."  Garrettson  fell  in  with  a  traveler 
who  had  come  from  beyond  Lake  Cham- 
plain,  where  he  had  seen  several  of  the 
preachers,  and  who  excitedly  told  him  the 
current  report,  that  "the  king  of  England 
had  sent  to  this  country  a  great  many  min- 
isters to  disaffect  the  people  and  bring 
about  another  war" — a  result  likely  to  fol- 
low because  of  the  unparalleled  activity  of 
these  preacher-agents  of  England!  Gar- 
rettson was  able,  fortunately,  to  ease  the 
man's  mind,  who  after  the  conversation 
"seemed  satisfied  and  much  affected."  Nor 
was  it  without  personal  peril  that  Garrett- 
son pushed  the  battle,  but  as  in  other  fields 
of  labor  nothing  unnerved  him,  and  nothing 
hindered  the  resistless  onward  march  of 
the  Church  under  his  superb  leadership. 
He  was  preeminently  a  leader,  with  gifts 
for  oversight,  administration,  and  inspira- 
tion, and  no  diocesan  bishop  ever  wielded 
greater  authority  or  carried  forward  enter- 


The  New  York  Conference       71 

prises  to  a  larger  success  than  did  this 
episcopos  of  the  Hudson  River  Valley. 
Coke  in  his  Journal  in  1789  says:  "In  the 
country  parts  of  this  State,  Freeborn  Gar- 
rettson,  one  of  our  presiding  elders,  has 
been  greatly  blessed  and  is  endued  with  an 
uncommon  talent  for  opening  new  places. 
With  a  set  of  inexperienced  but  zealous 
youths  he  has  not  only  carried  our  work  in 
this  State  as  high  as  Lake  Champlain,  but 
has  raised  congregations  in  most  of  the 
States  of  New  England  and  also  in  the 
little  State  of  Vermont  within  about  one 
hundred  miles  of  Montreal."  He  traveled 
between  five  and  six  thousand  miles  a  year 
through  a  large  part  of  New  York  State, 
parts  of  Connecticut  and  Vermont,  and 
even  to  Boston  and  Rhode  Island.  His 
New  York  District  extended  from  New 
Rochelle  to  Lake  Champlain,  and  from  the 
Eastern  States  westward  to  Utica,  then 
quite  a  new  and  unsettled  country,  and  it 
was  his  practice  to  go  round  this  district, 
about  a  thousand  miles,  once  every  three 
months,  preach  upward  of  a  hundred  ser- 
mons, then  return  to  New  York,  where  he 
usually  remained  about  two  weeks.  In 
three  years  there  were  more  than  three 
thousand    members, — twelve    circuits,    em- 


72  Freeborn   Garrettson 

bracing  nearly  all  the  territory  now  in- 
cluded in  the  New  York  and  Troy  Con- 
ferences, having  been  formed.  In  1789  one 
of  his  preachers  on  the  Newburgh  Circuit 
pushed  southwest  into  the  Wyoming  Val- 
ley, which  was  soon  added  to  the  list  of 
regular  appointments.  In  1793  Garrettson 
was  appointed  to  the  Philadelphia  District, 
but  the  next  year  he  was  returned  as  Pre- 
siding Elder  on  the  Dutchess  District,  and 
settled  at  Rhinebeck,  and  ever  after,  for 
more  than  thirty  years,  although  he  made 
frequent  excursions  to  the  South  and  East 
and  to  other  parts  of  the  country,  his  chief 
labors  were  within  bounds  of  the  New 
York  Conference,  a  Conference  which  has 
had  a  notable  history  from  its  organization 
to  the  present  time.  Garrettson  preached 
in  nearly  every  charge  within  its  bounds, 
was  presiding  elder  of  various  districts 
many  times,  and  more  than  once  was  ap- 
pointed Conference  missionary,  an  appoint- 
ment designed  to  give  him  an  opportunity 
to  travel  at  large,  blessing  all  the  societies 
with  the  quickening  influences  of  his  wide 
knowledge  of  denominational  affairs  and 
his  rich  experiences  of  grace  in  Jesus  Christ. 
He  was  an  itinerant  to  the  end  of  his  life. 
When  he  had  come  to  his  life's  evening  he 


The  New  York  Conference       73 

said  with  much  feehng,  "I  have  been  an 
itinerant  now  fifty-two  years,  and  were 
I  called  back  fifty  years  I  would  cheerfully 
retrace  them  in  so  glorious  a  cause  in  pref- 
erence to  sitting  on  a  splendid  earthly 
throne."  It  is  to  such  self-denying  devo- 
tion, to  such  fixedness  of  purpose,  to  such 
apostolic  zeal,  to  such  indifference  to  suf- 
fering, and  to  such  glad-hearted  willing- 
ness to  make  the  greatest  sacrifices  for  the 
gospel's  sake  that  we  are  indebted  for  the 
establishment  of  our  Methodism,  its  spirit, 
its  development,  and  its  progress  within 
the  bounds  of  the  New  York  Conference 
and  throughout  the  United  States  and  the 
world.  What  trumpet-tongued  voices  these 
are  which  so  mightily  speak  to  us  from  the 
glorious  past! 

"You  spring  from  men  whose  hearts  and  lives  are 

pure; 
Their  aim  was  steadfast,  as  their  purpose  sure: 
So  live  that  children's  children,  in  their  day. 
May  bless  such  fathers'  fathers  as  they  pray." 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  HOME  ON  THE  HUDSON 
A  STRANGER,  meeting  Bishop  Asbury  on 
the  prairies  of  Ohio,  asked  him  abruptly, 
"Where  are  you  from?"  Asbury  repHed, 
"From  Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
Baltimore,  or  almost  any  place  you  please." 
This  was  literally  true ;  he  was  a  man  with- 
out a  home.  Not  so  Freeborn  Garrettson. 
To  him  it  was  given  to  have  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  and  far-famed  of  early 
Methodism's  conspicuous  homes,  of  which 
there  were  not  a  few.  Who  does  not  know 
of  Perry  Hall,  the  country  home  of  Henry 
Dorsey  Gough,  of  which  mention  has  al- 
ready been  made,  said  to  have  been  one  of 
the  most  elegant  country  residences  in 
America  at  the  time,  or  of  the  spacious 
mansion  of  Governor  Van  Cortlandt,  the 
first  lieutenant-governor  of  New  York 
State,  and  elected  eighteen  times  to  that 
same  office — that  hearty  Methodist  whose 
influence  helped  Methodism  throughout  the 
State,  or  of  Richard  Bassett's  in  Delaware, 
or  of  General  Russell's,  whose  wife  was  a 
74 


The  Home  on  the  Hudson       75 

sister  of  Patrick  Henry,  on  the  West  Vir- 
ginia Heights,  or  of  Governor  Tiffin's  in 
Ohio,  all  "God's  chosen  cities  of  refuge 
for  the  Methodist  itinerants"  ?  Garrettson's 
home  would  compare  favorably  with  any 
of  these  named,  both  as  to  location  and 
ampleness,  and  in  no  one  of  them  was  a 
more  gracious  hospitality  shown. 

This  home,  which  was  called  Wildercliffe, 
was  situated  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Hud- 
son River  at  Rhinebeck,  about  three  miles 
from  the  village,  on  high  ground  which 
commanded  a  fine  view  to  the  west  and  to 
the  south.  Asbury,  who  often  visited  the 
place,  and  who  called  it  "Traveler's  Rest" 
— Boehm,  his  traveling  companion,  says, 
"The  bishop  delighted  to  visit  that  model 
household" — speaks  of  the  "good,  simply 
elegant,  useful  house"  with  its  "beautiful 
land  and  water  prospect."  The  chief 
feature  in  the  landscape  was  the  noble 
Hudson,  the  house  being  near  enough  to 
the  river  to  give  the  impression  that  the 
river  was  a  part  of  the  place.  To  the  south 
the  view  stretched  forty  miles  away  to  the 
Highlands  at  West  Point,  and  westward 
across  the  river  and  the  woodlands  and 
waving  fields  on  the  opposite  bank,  up  the 
slopes  of  the  low-lying  hills  beyond,  and  on 


76  Freeborn  Garrettson 

to  the  blue  Catskills.  The  outlook  was 
grandly  beautiful,  and  we  can  easily  enter, 
in  some  measure  at  least,  into  Garrettson's 
feelings  as  in  the  last  years  of  his  life  he 
was  wont  to  seat  himself  in  his  chair  be- 
neath the  trees  and  praise  God  audibly  and 
with  tears  as  he  gazed  on  the  enchanting 
prospect.  In  tranquil  beauty  the  spot  could 
scarcely  be  surpassed.  Not  long  before  his 
death  Bishop  Janes  wrote  to  Miss  Garrett- 
son: "I  doubt  not  you  enjoy  as  keenly  as 
ever  the  remarkable  and  almost  redundant 
natural  beauties  with  which  your  heavenly 
Father  has  surrounded  you.  Though  your 
eye  may  become  dim  they  will  never  fade 
from  your  mind." 

But  more  remarkable  even  than  the 
"natural  beauties"  of  the  place  was  the  at- 
mosphere of  the  home.  Dr.  Bangs  relates 
a  conversation  with  a  Presbyterian  woman 
of  New  York,  who  was  intimate  with  Mrs. 
Garrettson,  and  who  after  a  visit  to  the 
family  at  Rhinebeck  expressed  her  admira- 
tion for  the  order  which  prevailed  there. 
"I  do  not  mean,"  she  said,  "the  order  of  the 
farm  or  of  the  house,  but  I  mean  the  re- 
ligious order  which  prevails  throughout 
every  department ;  the  orderly  arrangement 
for  family  devotions,  and  the  orderly  man- 


The  Home  on  the  Hudson        77 

ner  in  which  the  servants  and  all  attached 
to  the  household  attend  to  their  religious 
as  well  as  to  their  other  duties."  And  who 
was  responsible  for  all  this?  Garrettson? 
Yes,  in  part.  But  Garrettson,  like  Asbury, 
was  to  the  end  of  his  days  a  wanderer  over 
the  face  of  the  earth.  Most  of  the  early 
preachers  when  they  married  located,  but 
not  Garrettson.  If  ever  a  Methodist  itin- 
erant had  social  allurements  or  a  home 
of  luxurious  ease  to  draw  him  out  of  the 
ranks  of  the  traveling  preachers  it  was  he. 
But  his  sense  of  obligation  was  far  too 
strong  to  permit  him  to  cease  traveling,  even 
though  he  was  most  happily  married  and 
had  an  unusually  comfortable  home.  Had 
he  been  inclined  to  locate  it  is  more  than 
doubtful  if  Mrs.  Garrettson  would  have 
encouraged  him  in  it.  Some  two  years  after 
their  marriage  she  wrote  in  one  of  her 
letters  to  him:  "I  hope,  my  dear,  you  will 
find  your  soul  more  than  ever  engaged  in 
the  work  of  the  Lord,  and  that  you  will 
improve  every  opportunity  to  bring  glory 
to  God.  Keep  ever  in  view  the  importance 
of  every  living  soul  you  meet  with,  and  let 
none  pass  without  a  word  in  season;  'tis 
expected  from  you  and  God  has  laid  it  on 
you.     I  despair   of   ever   being  a   shining 


78  Freeborn   Garrettson 

light ;  but  I  would  wish  to  see  you  the  most 
pious  man  in  the  world." 

No  sketch  of  Freeborn  Garrettson  can  be 
written  without  more  than  a  passing  notice 
of  this  remarkable  woman,  who,  though  she 
did  despair  of  being  a  shining  light,  was 
fbeyond  question,  for  more  than  a  half 
•century,  the  most  notable  woman  of  Amer- 
ican Methodism.  Lady  Huntingdon  did  not 
wield  a  more  beneficent  influence  in  Eng- 
land than  Catharine  Livingston  Garrettson 
did  in  America.  In  the  first  place,  she  was 
well  born.  Her  father  was  Judge  Robert 
R.  Livingston,  the  head  of  a  family  of  great 
distinction  and  of  historical  importance. 
The  Livingston  family,  it  is  stated,  was  the 
wealthiest  family  in  New  York  State,  as 
well  as  one  of  the  most  honored  in  the 
Americaij  Colonies.  Judge  Livingston  was 
a  man  of  the  highest  character.  Chief 
Justice  Smith,  who  knew  him  well,  was 
wont  to  say  that  were  he  banished  to  some 
lonely  isle,  and  given  the  choice  of  one  book 
and  one  friend,  the  book  would  be  the 
Bible  and  the  friend  Robert  R.  Living- 
ston. Catharine  Livingston's  mother  was 
Margaret  Beekman,  the  daughter  of  Colonel 
Henry  Beekman,  one  of  the  first  settlers 
and    largest   landholders    of    Rhinebeck,   a 


The  Home  on  the  Hudson       79 

descendant  of  William  Beekman,  who  was 
governor  of  what  is  now  the  State  of  Dela- 
ware under  a  commission  from  Sweden, 
and,  like  Judge  Livingston,  of  the  best  line- 
age of  the  Colonies,  and  who  helped  to 
create  its  highest  social  life.  The  Living- 
ston home  was  at  Clermont,  a  name  which 
will  forever  be  associated  with  Robert  Ful- 
ton's conquest  of  the  Hudson  River,  having 
been  given  to  the  first  steamboat  which  he 
proudly  navigated  up  the  river,  in  honor 
of  Chancellor  Livingston,  the  distinguished 
son  of  Judge  Livingston,  and  who  was  as- 
sociated with  Fulton  in  the  enterprise. 
There  Saturday,  October  14,  1752,  Cath- 
arine, the  sixth  child  of  the  family,  was 
born.  It  will  be  recalled  that  Freeborn 
Garrettson  was  bom  August  15  of  this 
same  year,  and  was  therefore  only  two 
months  her  senior. 

Catharine  Livingston  had  every  reason 
to  be  proud  of  her  ancestry  and  of  her  re- 
lationships. She  often  spoke  of  one  of  her 
ancestors,  John  Livingston,  a  noted  Presby- 
terian preacher  of  Scotland,  a  zealous  Cov- 
enanter, twice  suspended  from  his  pastoral 
office  because  of  his  opposition  to  the  gov- 
ernment, and  finally  exiled  in  1663.  This 
was  the  Livingston  who,  when  he  was  but 


82  Freeborn  Garrettson 

conversion.  It  is  difficult  at  this  distance 
of  time  to  realize  all  that  this  decision  to 
cast  in  her  lot  with  the  Methodists  involved 
or  cost  her.  She  moved  in  the  highest 
ranks  of  society,  was  a  correspondent  of 
most  of  the  distinguished  women  of  her 
day,  enjoyed  the  personal  acquaintance  of 
President  Washington,  and  while  after  her 
conversion  she  carefully  avoided  every  ap- 
pearance of  evil,  it  is  said  that  even  late  in 
her  prolonged  life  she  could  hardly  help 
showing  some  chagrin  when  mentioning  the 
fact  that  she  had  declined  an  invitation 
from  him  to  dance  with  him  at  a  party,  the 
reason  at  the  time,  however,  being  not  one 
of  conscience  but  the  fact  that  she  had 
engaged  herself  to  another  partner.  Her 
religious  decision  required  courage,  firm- 
ness of  purpose,  and  indifference  to  the 
speculations  and  banter  of  her  friends. 
The  change  which  she  made  was  a  radical 
one,  and  soon  excited  comment  and  even 
some  objections.  Her  own  family  were 
more  or  less  embarrassed  and  perplexed. 
Edward  Eggleston  is  responsible  for  the 
story  that  after  her  conversion  one  of 
her  brothers,  seeing  the  joyousness  of 
his  favorite  sister's  Christian  life  at  home, 
took  her  part  in  the  family,  but  at  the  same 


The  Home  on  the  Hudson       83 

time  said  to  her,  "Catharine,  enjoy  your  re- 
hgion  here  at  home  all  you  please,  but  for 
heaven's  sake  don't  join  those  Methodists; 
why,  down  at  the  ferry,  nobody  belongs  to 
them  and  there  is  nothing  of  them  only 
three  fishermen  and  a  negro."  Whereupon 
the  sister,  "one  of  the  fairest  flowers  of 
our  colonial  life,"  blushed  and  spoke  with 
much  resolution:  "Well,  what  if,  as  you 
say,  now  nobody  belongs  to  the  Methodists ; 
I  will  join  them  and  then  you  will  say  some- 
body does."  This  story  probably  has  a 
real  basis  of  fact  in  the  suggestion  of  her 
brother-in-law.  Dr.  Tillotson,  who,  when 
a  class  was  to  be  formed  in  Rhinebeck, 
urged  Miss  Livingston,  inasmuch  as  there 
was  only  one  other  who  desired  to  join, 
one  Jeremiah  Van  Auken,  "to  wait  until 
there  were  more  members,"  to  which  ad- 
vice she  gave  this  characteristic  reply:  "I 
join,  Mr.  Tillotson,  that  there  may  be 
more." 

It  was  just  before  this  incident  that 
Freeborn  Garrettson,  then  scarcely  thirty- 
five  years  of  age,  but  a  veteran  in  the  serv- 
ice, appointed  to  labor  in  the  State  of  New 
York  with  numerous  young  preachers  w^hom 
he  was  to  superintend,  making  his  first 
journey  northward,  traveling  by  land  and 


84  Freeborn   Garrettson 

preaching  wherever  an  opening  might  be 
made,  reached  Poughkeepsie,  where  he  re- 
mained several  days.  While  there  he  re- 
ceived a  note  from  Dr.  Tillotson,  who  was 
himself  from  Maryland  and  had  heard 
much  of  Garrettson  in  his  native  State,  in- 
viting him  to  his  house  at  Rhinebeck.  The 
invitation  was  accepted  and,  accompanied 
by  one  of  his  young  preachers,  he  went  to 
Rhinebeck,  where  a  most  gratifying  wel- 
come was  given  them.  Wakeley,  in  his 
"Lost  Chapters  Recovered,"  says  that  it  was 
in  New  York  at  the  house  of  John  Staples 
that  Garrettson  first  saw  Miss  Livingston; 
but  he  is  in  error,  for  on  the  written  state- 
ment of  Miss  Garrettson  the  first  meeting 
took  place  at  this  time.  Often  in  later 
years  Mrs.  Garrettson  described  the  visit. 
Mr.  Garrettson  preached  several  times  dur- 
ing the  few  days  he  spent  at  Dr.  Tillotson's 
to  increasing  congregations,  and  when  he 
departed,  Rhinebeck  had  been  added  to  the 
circuit  then  forming.  When  he  left  he  car- 
ried with  him  letters  of  introduction  to  Mrs. 
Livingston  at  Clermont,  which  was  his 
first  stop  on  his  journey  up  the  river.  His 
coming  to  Clermont  made  a  profound 
sensation.  At  the  breakfast  table  that 
morning    Mrs.    Livingston    recited    a    text 


The  Home  on  the  Hudson       85 

which  had  been  deeply  impressed  on  her 
mind  during  the  night,  "This  day  is  sal- 
vation come  to  thine  house,"  and  when  in 
the  course  of  the  day  a  stranger  unex- 
pectedly came  they  remembered.  His  holy 
bearing,  devout  conversation,  and  earnest 
prayers  were  truly  felt  in  the  family,  who 
were  often  affected  to  tears.  "He  need 
not  change  his  form  to  be  an  angel,"  said 
one  of  them.  "O,"  said  another  who  lived 
at  a  little  distance,  "when  you  have  prayers, 
please  send  for  me." 

But  while  they  were  strangely  moved  by 
his  conversation  and  the  religious  services 
which  he  held  on  the  occasion  of  that  visit, 
when  subsequently  it  became  known  that  he 
was  interested  in  Miss  Livingston,  opposi- 
tion to  their  marriage  developed  which  oc- 
casioned both  of  them  much  sorrow.  Their 
correspondence  during  this  period,  and 
indeed  throughout  their  entire  married 
life — hundreds  of  their  letters  are  pre- 
served at  Drew  Theological  Seminary — 
is  singularly  beautiful.  Not  infrequently 
before  their  marriage  she  refers  to  the  "sit- 
uation" which,  she  felt,  "called  for  grace 
and  wisdom,"  in  such  passages  as  these: 
"They  all  continue  with  respect  to  tem- 
porals as  when  you  left.     No  one  seems 


86  Freeborn  Garrettson 

inclined  to  speak  to  me,  and  I  feel  not  the 
least  freedom  to  begin  the  subject.  .  .  . 
I  am  happy  [though],  and  nothing  does 
offend  me."  "I  received  your  letter  and 
was  pleased  to  find  that  you  had  taken  the 
resolution  of  going  to  Clermont.  By  the 
time  you  read  this  the  result  of  your  con- 
ference will  be  determined.  I  have  great 
hopes  you  will  be  kindly  received.  Should 
it  be  otherwise  I  should  have  great  need 
of  uncommon  support.  There  is  nothing 
gives  me  more  disquietude  than  that  of  not 
being  permitted  to  receive  your  visits.  My 
situation  is  on  that  account  more  painful 
than  I  can  tell  you,  and  throws  an  embar- 
rassment over  me  that  I  can  by  no  means 
conquer,  and  shall  never  be  reconciled  to. 
'Tis  this  that  led  me  to  press  you  to  once 
more  see  my  brother." 

During  the  period  when  Garrettson  was 
forbidden  to  come  to  Clermont  they  met  at 
Miss  Livingston's  sister's  house,  but  neither 
of  them  liked  the  idea  of  meeting  thus  clan- 
destinely. It  was  her  mother  who  was 
most  opposed.  One  of  her  sisters  assured 
Miss  Livingston  that  her  happiness  was 
dear  to  most  of  her  brothers  and  sisters, 
and  that  what  opposition  any  of  them  might 
feel   would   disappear   if  only  her  mother 


The  Home  on  the  Hudson       87 

could  be  prevailed  upon.  This  opposition, 
while  not  violent,  was  disquieting  and  an- 
noying. Mrs.  Livingston  was  not  favora- 
ble to  her  daughter's  going  to  the  quarterly 
meetings  which  Mr.  Garrettson  held,  and 
while  she  did  not  forbid  it  would  not  give 
her  the  money  necessary  for  the  journey. 
Later  Miss  Livingston  came  into  some 
property,  and  it  was  evidently  their  purpose 
to  take  a  house  in  Albany,  Miss  Livingston 
writing  that  she  expected  sixty  pounds 
soon,  and  that  she  would  get  some  things 
for  housekeeping.  "I  should  be  grieved," 
she  adds,  "if  you  should  continue  to  have 
any  fears  on  my  account.  The  luxuries  of 
life  I  am  principled  against;  I  wish  them 
not;  they  long  since  lost  their  power  to 
please  a  soul  that  is  on  the  wing  for  eter- 
nity." It  would  appear  from  the  corre- 
spondence that  the  situation  was  most  acute 
in  1793,  when  there  were  threats  of  disin- 
heritance, but  the  loss  of  property  did  not 
daunt  her,  and  we  find  her  writing  such 
sentiments  as  these : 

"My  Dearest  Friend:  Without  know- 
ing of  certain  conveyance  for  this  I  sit  down 
to  tell  you  that  I  love  you  more  perhaps 
than  I  have  ever  done." 

In  another  letter,  after  stating  that  con- 


88  Freeborn  Garrettson 

ditions    had    not    changed,    she    concludes 
thus: 

"Farewell,  best  of  men;  God  loves, 
and  let  that  suffice.  Assured  of  his  favor, 
what  have  we  to  fear  from  outward  circum- 
stances however  gloomy.  I  am  my  be- 
loved's and  my  beloved  is  mine." 

In  April  she  writes  from  New  York, 
where  she  is  visiting 

"Every  expression  of  regard  from  you, 
my  best  friend,  is  dear  to  me ;  I  thank  you 
for  them  and  wish  myself  more  deserving. 
I  should  have  written  you  before,  but  knew 
not  until  I  heard  from  you  where  to  di- 
rect. God  grant  us  a  happy  meeting  in  the 
country.  [The  letter  tells  of  her  plan  to 
go  to  visit  the  Tillotsons  at  Rhinebeck  the 
following  week.]  Oh,  when  will  the  dark 
clouds  of  displeasure  be  dispelled?  There 
must  be  a  cause  why  the  Lord  permits  this 
opposition  to  his  will.  Still  love  and  pray 
for  your  affectionate 

"Catharine  Livingston." 

Almost  immediately  after  this  her 
mother  withdrew  her  opposition  and  gave 
her  hearty  consent  to  the  marriage,  and 
Catharine  Livingston,  as  Walpole  said  of 
Lady  Margaret  Hastings's  marriage  with 
Ingham,  "threw  herself  away  on  a  Metho- 


The  Home  on  the  Hudson       89 

dist  preacher."  The  wedding  took  place 
June  30,  1793,  in  the  First  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  in  Rhincbeck,  New  York,  the 
ceremony  being  performed  by  the  Rev. 
Peter  Moriarty,  and  directly  after  the  cere- 
mony Mr.  and  Mrs.  Garrettson  partook  of 
the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  to- 
gether. 

Berridge  said  that  John  Wesley  and 
George  Whitefield  had  only  been  saved 
from  making  a  shipwreck  of  the  cause  by 
God's  sending  them  ''a  pair  of  ferrets"  for 
wives.  Garrettson  never  ceased  to  bless 
God  for  the  noble  woman  whom  God  gave 
to  him.  Their  home  life  was  beautiful  be- 
yond words.  As  has  been  stated  in  another 
place,  after  their  marriage  Garrettson  was 
stationed  at  Philadelphia,  where  the  yellow 
fever  was  raging  with  unusual  virulence, 
but  Mrs.  Garrettson  did  not  hesitate  to  take 
the  risk,  and  accompanied  him.  The  spring 
following  they  returned  to  New  York, 
where  Garrettson  purchased  a  farm  at 
Rhinebeck,  setting  up  housekeeping  in  an 
old  Dutch  farmhouse  some  miles  from  the 
river  but  near  the  church.  This  first  dwell- 
ing was  a  humble  one,  suited  to  their  narrow 
income,  for  since  Mr.  Garrettson  would  not 
take  a   salary,   and   since,  during  his  first 


90  Freeborn   Garrettson 

years  in  the  itinerancy,  he  had  suffered 
serious  financial  loss,  though  his  income 
was  still  sufficient  for  his  moderate  wants, 
and  as  Mrs.  Garrettson's  income  at  this  time 
was  also  a  limited  one,  their  experiences 
during  the  early  years  of  their  married 
life  were  more  in  unison  with  that  of  their 
brethren  than  has  commonly  been  supposed. 
In  this  place  they  lived  five  years,  and  here 
it  was  that  their  only  child,  Mary  Ruther- 
ford Garrettson,  was  born  in  1794.  At  the 
end  of  this  period  he  made  an  exchange 
for  the  place  which  for  many  years  was 
to  be  a  Methodist  shrine.  That  year,  hav- 
ing the  house  to  build,  Garrettson  did  not 
travel,  but  remained  at  home  to  look  after 
its  construction.  They  moved  into  it  in 
October,  1799,  and  Mrs.  Garrettson  wrote 
in  her  diary:  "The  first  night  in  family 
prayer,  while  my  blessed  husband  was 
dedicating  it  to  the  Lord,  the  place  was 
filled  with  His  presence  who  in  days  of  old 
filled  the  temple  with  His  glory.  Every 
heart  rejoiced  and  felt  that  God  was  with 
us  of  a  truth.  Such  was  our  introduction 
into  our  new  habitation,  and  had  we  not 
cause  to  say  with  Joshua,  'As  for  me  and 
my  house  we  will  serve  the  Lord'?" 

Garrettson    had    felt    no    little    anxiety 


The  Home  on  the  Hudson       91 

about  the  propriety  of  building  what  was 
for  those  days  an  unusually  fine  house,  but 
he  made  it  a  matter  of  prayer  and  the  Lord 
gave  him  answers  of  peace.  It  was  not 
ostentatious,  but  commodious  and  attract- 
ive. There  were  piazzas  running  around 
the  house,  from  which  one  could  enter  the 
parlors  and  sitting-room  through  low  win- 
dows. Within  the  house  was  much  antique 
furniture,  an  ample  library,  many  historical 
relics ;  the  walls  were  adorned  with  family 
portraits,  among  them  that  of  Chancellor 
Livingston  and  other  members  of  the  Liv- 
ingston family;  and  pictures  of  Garrettson 
and  Asbury  hung  side  by  side.  Here  the 
most  generous  hospitality  was  dispensed. 
Thither  came  the  most  distinguished  states- 
men, soldiers,  and  scholars  of  the  time,  and 
here  with  the  grace  and  tact  that  came  of 
high  breeding  and  true  goodness  of  heart 
Mrs.  Garrettson  presided.  Here,  too,  it 
was  that  Garrettson  was  seen  at  his  best. 
Bishop  George  once  remarked  how  agreea- 
bly disappointed  he  had  been  in  visiting 
Garrettson  at  his  own  house.  Having  only 
seen  him  occasionally  at  the  General  Con- 
ference, and  having  been  under  the  necessity 
of  differing  from  him  on  questions  of  ec- 
clesiastical polity,  he  had  formed  the  idea 


92  Freeborn  Garrettson 

that  Garrettson  was  austere  in  his  manners 
and  somewhat  bigoted  in  his  views;  "but," 
said  the  bishop,  "when  I  had  the  happiness 
of  visiting  him  under  his  own  roof  and  of 
observing  the  quiet  order  of  his  household, 
the  happiness  of  his  disposition,  the  kind- 
ness and  attention  with  which  he  treated  his 
friends  and  visitors,  all  my  prejudices  were 
banished  and  I  now  think  that  the  worth 
of  Brother  Garrettson  has  not  been  duly 
estimated."  Garrettson  was  peculiarly  at- 
tached to  his  brethren  in  the  ministry,  and 
the  prophet's  chamber  of  his  home  was 
rarely  vacant.  Dr.  Bangs  says  that  Gar- 
rettson never  seemed  so  happy  as  when  in 
the  society  of  his  brethren.  To  those  of 
them  with  whom  he  was  intimate  he  would 
unbosom  himself  without  reserve.  His 
house  was  the  free  resort  of  all  who  could 
visit  him,  and  they  were  royally  enter- 
tained. To  his  house,  his  table,  and  his 
heart  Methodist  ministers  always  received 
a  cordial  welcome.  Asbury,  Whatcoat, 
McKendree,  Waugh,  Hedding,  Bangs,  Lee, 
Abbott,  and  practically  every  man  of  note 
in  our  Church  in  America,  Reece,  Hannah, 
Thornton,  Arthur,  Pope,  and  Rigg  from 
over  the  sea,  Nott  and  Potter  and  other 
distinguished     representatives     of     other 


The  Home  on  the  Hudson       93 

Churches  visited  in  this  quiet  Methodist 
home,  and  not  one  of  the  long  Hne  of  wel- 
come guests  ever  left  this  hospitable  man- 
sion without  saying  with  Asbury,  "I  do 
believe  God  dwells  in  this  house." 

Mrs.  Garrettson's  solicitude  for  the  itin- 
erants was  genuinely  tender  and  altogether 
practical.  "If  any  of  our  brethren  should 
want  linen,"  she  wrote  Mr.  Garrettson, 
"send  me  the  measure  of  the  wrist  and 
collar.  I  have  a  remnant  of  linen  which 
will  make  two  shirts  and  treasure  an  in- 
clination to  serve  them."  Her  ministries 
to  her  husband  during  his  frequent  and 
protracted  absences  from  home  were  con- 
stant. "I  send  you  the  Digester,  a  tea- 
kettle, carpet,  some  butter,  and  a  pot  of 
currant  jelly,"  she  writes.  Again,  "You 
often  complain  of  colds;  I  wish  you  would 
wear  a  flannel  waistcoat  next  your  skin; 
this  would  effectually  prevent  it."  She 
possessed  great  personal  dignity,  and  to 
the  end  of  her  days  gave  no  evidence  of 
abatement  of  intellectual  vigor.  Even  in 
extreme  age  she  continued  to  manifest  a 
lively  interest  in  ecclesiastical  and  political 
events  with  a  fine  perception  of  their  ulti- 
mate results,  and  with  an  eye  ever  fixed  upon 
their  moral  and  religious  bearings.     With 


94  Freeborn  Garrettson 

warm  friendships  among  her  kindred,  and 
constant  intercourse  with  the  circle  of 
wealth  and  political  influence  to  which  her 
family  position  attached  her,  and  with  the 
utmost  refinement  which  the  best  social 
culture  could  impart,  she  aspired  chiefly 
for  holier  sympathies  and  gloried  most  of 
all  in  counting  herself  a  fellow  citizen  with 
the  saints  and  of  the  household  of  God. 
She  died  in  1849,  ^^^  ^^-  Olin,  then  presi- 
dent of  Wesleyan  University,  could  say 
without  exaggeration  in  the  sermon  which 
he  preached  at  her  funeral,  "I  have  not 
known  another  Christian  at  once  so  humble 
and  prayerful  and  withal  so  fearless  and 
confident."  For  more  than  thirty  years 
after  Mrs.  Garrettson's  death  the  same  gen- 
erous hospitality  was  dispensed  at  Wilder- 
cliffe  by  Miss  Garrettson,  who  possessed  a 
mind  of  vigor  and  versatility,  was  a  lover  of 
books  and  nature,  had  a  brilliant  imagina- 
tion, and  was  a  writer  of  considerable  merit. 
In  the  later  years  her  wonderful  memory 
and  rare  descriptive  gifts  enabled  her  to 
picture  with  ease  the  historic  days  with 
which  her  parents  were  so  conspicuously 
identified.    She  died  in  1879. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  PREACHER  AND  TEACHER 

Jesse  Lee,  who  felt  aggrieved  that  a 
notice  of  the  Christmas  Conference  failed 
to  reach  him,  says  in  his  quaint  way  that 
Freeborn  Garrettson  undertook  to  travel  to 
the  South,  but  "being  fond  of  preaching 
by  the  way"  he  failed  to  give  timely  notice  to 
those  preachers  who  were  in  the  extremi- 
ties of  the  work,  and  that  for  this  reason 
they  were  not  present.  Garrettson  surely 
did  love  to  preach.  He  was  not  always  a 
popular  preacher,  especially  in  the  early 
years,  because  of  his  conscientious  scruples 
against  war  and  of  his  attitude  toward 
slavery,  but  he  preached  his  conviction  al- 
ways, being  resolved,  as  he  said,  "to  be 
found  in  my  duty  and  to  keep  back  no 
part  of  the  counsel  of  God,"  no  matter 
what  happened  to  him  personally.  Nor  was 
he  without  his  faults  as  a  public  speaker. 
His  voice  was  unmusical  and  harsh,  '^nd 
usually  keyed  too  high.  This  was  so  preju- 
dicial to  his  success  that  before  their  mar- 
riage Mrs.  Garrettson  wrote  to  him:  "May 
I  again  presume  in  the  name  of  a  sister  to 
95 


96  Freeborn  Garrettson 

mention  what  I  think  is  a  fault  in  your 
speaking?  When  you  are  earnest  you  lose 
the  natural  tone  of  your  voice.  Everything 
that  is  unnatural  seems  to  give  pain.  I  al- 
ways think  you  hurt  yourself  by  the  exer- 
tions you  then  make,  and  have  no  doubt 
but  you  do ;  though  you  may  not  be  sensible 
of  it  at  the  time.  The  effect  on  your  audi- 
ence is  disagreeable.  It  appears  like  anger. 
Speak  strong  words,  they  are  proper,  they 
are  often  necessary,  but  let  it  be  in  your 
own  tone  of  voice,  which  is  soft  and  per- 
suasive." 

But  while  Garrettson  had  little  fame  as 
an  orator,  he  was  mighty  as  a  preacher, 
judged  by  the  effects  produced  and  the  re- 
sults. And  this  must  always  be  the  final 
test  of  sermons:  Do  they  accomplish  their 
purpose?  Garrettson  was  not  a  scholarly 
man.  He  made  no  pretensions  to  accurate 
scholarship.  Sometimes  it  might  seem  that 
he  was  even  hostile  to  an  educated  ministry, 
as,  for  instance,  when  speaking  of  primi- 
tive Methodist  usages  and  how  candidates 
were  received  into  the  ministry,  he  said:  "I 
do  not  ask  how  many  languages  he  under- 
stands or  whether  he  can  solve  the  prob- 
lems of  Euclid.  Bunyan  and  Abbott  had 
very  little  learning,  but  the  power  of  God 


The  Preacher  and  Teacher       97 

accompanied  them.  Knowing  how  to  navi- 
gate a  ship  or  solve  the  most  difficult  ques- 
tion in  algebra  has  very  little  to  do  with  the 
cure  of  souls,"  That  was  the  great  thing 
with  him,  "the  cure  of  souls";  and  his 
preaching  and  his  labors  were  all  to  that 
end.  "It  gives  me  much  more  pleasure  to 
be  a  means  of  bringing  sinners  to  Christ 
than  to  be  thought  a  great  preacher,"  he 
says.  Yet  what  a  preacher  he  was !  As- 
bury  in  his  Journal  tells  of  "a  great  church- 
man, who  after  hearing  Garrettson  a  second 
time  was  seized  with  conviction  on  his  way 
home  and  fell  down  in  the  road  and  stayed 
a  great  part  of  the  night  crying  to  God  for 
mercy.  It  was  suggested  to  him  that  his 
house  was  on  fire;  his  answer  was,  Tt  is 
better  for  me  to  lose  my  house  than  my 
soul.'  "  Garrettson's  converts  were  numbered 
by  the  thousands.  "It  may  fairly  be  ques- 
tioned whether  any  one  minister  in  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  or  indeed  any 
other  Church  during  the  same  period,  has 
been  instrumental  in  the  awakening  and 
conversion  of  more  sinners  than  he;" — this 
was  Bangs's  conclusion.  His  fidelity  in  soul- 
winning  was  so  great  as  to  gain  the  ap- 
proval of  the  incomparable  Asbury,  who 
records  that  Garrettson  talked  to  the  land- 


98  Freeborn  Garretlson 

lord  of  a  certain  tavern  on  the  subject  of 
religion,  and  prayed  with  him  at  night  and 
in  the  morning,  though  the  man  would  not 
consent  to  call  his  family  together.  Asbury 
adds  this  comment:  "Brother  Garrettson 
will  let  no  person  escape  a  religious  lecture 
that  comes  in  his  way.  Sure  he  is  faithful, 
but  what  am  I?" 

Dr.  Neale,  the  translator  of  so  many  of 
the  beautiful  hymns  of  the  Eastern  Church, 
once  told  of  having  seen  in  an  English 
country  church,  in  the  rector's  pew,  a  paper 
which  looked  like  a  placard  but  which  on 
investigation  proved  to  be  a  sermon  headed 
"On  the  vanity  and  uncertainty  of  human 
life,"  and  labeled  "in  case  of  an  accident." 
He  didn't  propose  to  be  sermonless  if  by 
any  chance  he  should  forget  his  discourse 
and  leave  it  at  home.  The  subject  of  the 
sermon  held  in  reserve  was  always  timely. 
Garrettson,  though  he  did  say  when  he 
first  began  to  preach  that  his  Bible  at  cer- 
tain times  seemed  so  small  that  he  could 
not  find  a  text,  was  never  without  a  theme. 
He  realized,  as  do  few  men,  that  the  spirit 
of  the  Lord  God  was  upon  him,  having  ap- 
pointed him  to  preach  glad  tidings  to  the 
meek,  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted,  to 
proclaim  liberty   to    the   captives   and   the 


The  Preacher  and  Teacher       99 

opening  of  the  prison  to  tliem  that  are 
bound.  Preaching,  with  him,  was  always 
serious  business.  Some  one  has  spoken  of 
a  certain  style  of  orator  "who  mounted  the 
rostrum,  threw  back  his  head,  and  left  the 
consequences  with  God."  But  that  was  not 
Garrettson's  style;  his  was  "the  preaching 
of  a  man  aiming  to  be  useful,  aspiring  to 
be  good  instead  of  great,  penetrating  by 
the  arrows  of  truth  into  the  sinner's  heart, 
and  pouring  the  balm  of  consolation  into 
the  wounded  spirit.  It  was  deep,  experi- 
mental, and  practical."  One  who  heard 
him  often  thus  describes  him:  "His  action 
in  the  pulpit  was  not  graceful,  though  it 
was  solemn  and  impressive.  His  sermons 
were  sometimes  enlivened  by  anecdotes  of 
a  character  calculated  to  illustrate  the 
points  he  was  aiming  to  establish.  He  was 
likewise  deficient  in  systematic  arrange- 
ment and  logical  precision.  This  deficiency, 
however,  was  more  than  made  up  by  the 
pointedness  of  his  appeals  to  the  conscience, 
the  aptness  of  his  illustrations  from  Scrip- 
ture, the  manner  in  which  he  explained  and 
enforced  the  depth  of  Christian  experience, 
and  the  holy  fervor  of  spirit  with  which 
he  delivered  himself  on  all  occasions.  Like 
most   other  extemporaneous   speakers,   his 


100  Freeborn  Garrettson 

mind  sometimes  seemed  barren,  and  he 
failed,  apparently  for  want  of  words,  to 
express  that  on  which  his  understanding 
appeared  to  be  laboring.  At  other  times 
his  heart  appeared  full,  his  mind  luminous, 
and  he  would  pour  forth  a  stream  of  gospel 
truth  which  abundantly  refreshed  the  souls 
of  God's  people  with  the  'living  waters.' 
And  although  his  gesticulations  were  some- 
what awkward,  there  was  that  in  his  man- 
ner and  matter  which  always  rendered  his 
preaching  entertaining  and  useful;  and  sel- 
dom did  the  hearer  tire  under  his  adminis- 
tration of  the  word  of  life — point,  pathos, 
and  variety  generally  characterizing  all  his 
discourses." 

Garrettson  was  a  believer  in  the  system 
of  Methodist  theology  as  held  by  Wesley, 
Fletcher,  and  others,  and  taught  the  Wes- 
leyan  doctrines  all  his  life.  Methodism  was 
not  a  new  theology,  as  we  all  know,  though 
its  preaching  was  in  a  real  sense  doctrinal, 
its  effectiveness  being  proof  of  this  fact, 
for  the  preaching  which  does  not  bring  the 
central  truths  of  the  gospel  home  to  the 
hearts  of  men  cannot  show  such  results  as 
were  seen  in  the  Evangelical  Revival  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Wesley  was  not  a  theo- 
logian  in   the  sense  that  Augustine  was; 


The  Preacher  and  Teacher     101 

his  chief  business  was  not  to  define  meta- 
physical theology,  but  to  bring  men  into  a 
saving  relation  with  a  personal  God  and 
thereby  into  a  joyous  religious  experience. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  Garrettson.  His 
theology  was  for  use.  Especially  did  he 
seek  to  inculcate  his  belief  in  the  doctrine 
of  sanctification.  A  few  years  after  he 
began  to  travel,  while  in  North  Carolina, 
he  received  the  full  baptism  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  which,  as  did  Nathan  Bangs,  he 
liked  to  refer  to  as  "perfect  love."  This 
experience  he  rejoiced  in  continually  and 
taught  everywhere,  and  was  himself  a  wit- 
ness to  its  truth;  for  no  man.  Dr.  Bangs 
says,  ever  gave  more  irrefutable  evidence 
of  the  holiness  of  his  heart  and  the  blame- 
lessness  of  his  life. 

He  was  a  stanch  defender  of  the  faith, 
and  sometimes  was  drawn  into  controversy. 
In  Rhode  Island  he  was  much  annoyed  with 
Socinian  teachings  which  were  being  in- 
culcated in  certain  places,  and  preached 
against  Socinianism.  Never  did  his  zeal 
show  itself  more  intensely  on  any  subject 
than  when  the  real  divinity,  the  eternal  deity 
of  Christ  was  called  in  question.  He  pub- 
lished a  tract  on  this  subject  which  showed 
his  deep  concern  for  this  cardinal  doctrine 


102  Freeborn  Garrettson 

of  Christianity.  He  felt  it  necessary  on 
another  occasion  to  preach  against  the  pe- 
cuhar  sentiments  of  the  Anabaptists,  and 
was  always  ready  to  defend  the  tenets  which 
he  held. 

His  writings,  while  not  extensive,  were 
important,  his  first  publication  being  an  ac- 
count of  his  early  labors  in  the  itinerancy, 
and  the  second  a  vigorous  pamphlet  against 
slavery.  We  have  already  seen  how  at  his 
conversion  Garrettson  liberated  all  his  own 
slaves,  and  thereafter  his  opposition  to 
slavery  as  an  institution  was  most  pro- 
nounced and  at  times  would  seem  to  have 
been  much  in  advance  of  his  Church,  al- 
though as  early  as  1780  the  Conference  of 
that  year  pronounced  its  judgment  upon 
slavery  as  contrary  to  all  laws,  divine  and 
human,  and  hurtful  to  society. 

Garrettson  was  also  a  leader  in  the  tem- 
perance movement,  taking  ground  in  1822, 
when  the  new  chapel  was  built  in  Rhine- 
beck,  that  not  a  drop  of  spirituous  liquor 
should  be  used  by  the  workmen  in  its  erec- 
tion. When  told  that  such  a  thing  was  un- 
heard of,  and  that  it  would  be  quite 
impossible  for  mechanics  to  labor  without 
rum  to  strengthen  them,  he  was  obdurate 
and  the  work  was  accomplished  in  accord- 


The  Preacher  and  Teacher     103 

ance  with  this  prohibition.  His  attitude 
in  regard  to  the  drink  evil  was  most  re- 
markable, when  the  social  practices  of  the 
times  in  which  he  lived  and  the  circle  in 
which  his  family  moved  are  taken  into  con- 
sideration. Garrettson  was  by  nature  and 
grace  a  foe  of  all  kinds  of  evil,  and  had 
both  capacity  and  courage  for  reforms. 

As  the  years  multiplied  he  became  more 
intense  in  all  his  work.  "I  am  now  bending 
over  eternity  and  must  soon  go  the  way  of 
all  the  earth.  I  endeavor  in  every  sermon 
I  preach  to  deliver  it  as  if  it  were  my  last. 
I  often  think  of  my  dear  old  friend,  Bishop 
Asbury,  who  spent  the  last  shred  of  his 
valuable  life  in  the  service  of  his  great  Mas- 
ter. I  wish  to  do  good,  to  be  greatly  taken 
up  in  my  blessed  Master's  work,  that  my 
last  days  may  be  my  best  days."  And  God 
gave  him  the  desire  of  his  heart. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  ECCLESIASTIC 

Garrettson's  ecclesiastical  life  covered 
the  first  half  century  of  Methodism  in 
America,  and  the  record  of  his  life  for  that 
period,  on  the  authority  of  Stevens,  is  prac- 
tically the  history  of  the  denomination. 
From  the  first  Conference  which  he  at- 
tended in  Baltimore  in  1776  to  the  last  one, 
held  in  Troy,  New  York,  in  1827,  the  year 
of  his  death,  he  was  one  of  the  conspicuous 
makers  of  Methodism,  being  active  and 
zealous  from  the  beginning  of  his  ministerial 
career,  and  giving  invaluable  aid  at  all 
times  to  the  shaping  of  its  polity  and  the 
carrying  forward  of  its  enterprises.  Once 
he  had  joined  the  Methodists  he  was  a  rigid 
denominationalist,  jealous  of  the  traditions 
of  Methodism,  a  lover  of  discipline  and 
order,  standing  always  for  a  strict  interpre- 
tation of  its  early  usages,  cautiously  con- 
servative, and  ever  manifesting  the  most 
stern  and  inflexible  opposition  to  any  in- 
novation upon  the  established  doctrines  of 
the  Church. 

With  Asbury  and  a  few  others  he  with- 
104 


The  Ecclesiastic  105 

stood  the  earliest  attacks  upon  Wesleyan 
Methodism  in  1778  and  1779,  when  a  serious 
schism  was  threatened,  although  Garrettson 
did  not  like  the  use  of  that  term  in  con- 
nection with  the  brethren  in  Virginia  who 
had  urged  that  the  sacraments  might  be 
administered  by  certain  preachers  who 
should  be  chosen  for  that  purpose,  holding 
that  they  had  been  misrepresented ;  but  be- 
yond question  the  situation  was  a  critical 
one,  and  it  required  all  the  combined  wis- 
dom, prudence,  and  forbearance  of  Garrett- 
son, Asbury,  and  Watters  to  avert  the 
disaster  and  effect  a  reconciliation.  Asbury 
was  tactful,  but  not  more  so  than  Garrett- 
son. I  doubt  if  there  was  a  man  in  the 
itinerancy  then  or  during  his  lifetime  who 
had  greater  skill  as  a  pacificator  than  Gar- 
rettson. His  ability  as  a  peacemaker 
amounted  to  genius.  While  he  was  a  man 
of  pronounced  opinions,  and  at  times  was 
diametrically  opposed  to  the  proposals  of 
some  of  his  brethren,  he  was  never  an  "ir- 
reconcilable." As  he  said  late  in  life,  "On 
the  General  Conference  floor  my  brethren 
know  that  I  have  spoken  the  sentiments  of 
my  heart  freely,  always  in  favor  of  what  I 
believed  to  be  old  Methodism,  and  I  have 
upon    all    occasions    as    strenuously    con- 


106  Freeborn  Garrettson 

tended  for  peace  and  unanimity  in  the  body 
and  submission  to  the  decisions  of  the 
majority." 

Garrettson  was  one  of  the  first  of  the 
American  preachers  with  whom  Dr.  Coke 
conferred  upon  his  arrival  in  1784,  and 
when  he  unfolded  to  him  the  plan  of  Mr. 
Wesley,  Garrettson  writes,  "I  was  some- 
what surprised  when  Mr.  Wesley's  plan  of 
ordination  was  opened  to  me,  and  deter- 
mined to  sit  in  silence."  That  was  so 
characteristic  of  Garrettson,  his  unwilling- 
ness to  commit  himself  until  he  had  thought 
the  matter  through!  Wesley  was  his 
"father  in  God,"  Dr.  Coke  had  come  to 
America  with  the  title  of  superintendent, 
but  the  young  American,  who  had  had 
nearly  ten  years  of  varied  experiences  in 
Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  and 
elsewhere,  was  their  peer,  with  an  inalien- 
able right  to  individuality  of  judgment,  a 
right  which  he  always  maintained. 

We  have  seen  that  Garrettson  was  the 
"herald"  of  the  Christmas  Conference,  and 
in  the  deliberations  of  that  body  he  gave  his 
counsel  freely  in  all  matters  pertaining  to 
the  organization  of  the  Church,  and  in  all 
the  important  discussions  he  was  a  con- 
spicuous figure.  He  must  not  be  thought  of 


The  Ecclesiastic  107 

merely  or  chiefly  as  an  itinerant  preacher- 
evangelist,  he  was  one  of  the  wisest  and 
most  constructive  counselors  of  the  period. 
Asbury  placed  the  highest  reliance  upon 
him.  They  frequently  conferred  together. 
Asbury  was  a  most  welcome  guest  in  the 
home  on  the  Hudson,  where,  sitting  before 
the  blazing  fires  of  that  hospitable  mansion, 
they  discussed  the  difficult  questions  of 
administration  and  planned  for  further 
itinerant  advances.  Whenever  the  leaders 
of  the  Church  assembled  Freeborn  Garrett- 
son  was  of  the  number.  His  name  is  to  be 
found  among  the  members  of  the  famous 
Council,  which  was  convened  by  Asbury  in 
1789.  Nearly  five  years  had  passed  since 
the  Christmas  Conference,  and  there  had 
been  no  general  meeting  of  the  preachers. 
Asbury  did  not  see  the  need  of  a  General 
Conference,  and  proposed  the  formation 
of  a  Council,  to  be  composed  of  men  se- 
lected by  himself,  and  with  almost  plenary 
powers.  It  met  with  much  opposition  and 
was  only  twice  assembled.  Garrettson  was 
present  both  times,  but  the  scheme  was  not 
to  his  liking.  It  was  too  much  of  a  close 
corporation,  there  was  too  great  power 
vested,  according  to  Asbury's  plan,  in  the 
head  of  the  Council,  and  Garrettson  was  a 


108  Freeborn  Garrettson 

consistent  opponent  all  his  life  of  exces- 
sive episcopal  authority.  At  the  General 
Conference  of  1792,  during  the  memorable 
controversy  which  was  aroused  by  James 
O'Kelly,  one  of  the  most  consecrated  of 
the  preachers  but  with  a  fiery  love  of  free- 
dom, in  his  effort  to  secure  a  constitutional 
check  to  the  absolute  authority  of  the  bishop, 
Garrettson  supported  him  in  the  debate,  but 
when  O'Kelly's  proposition  was  defeated, 
and  he  withdrew  from  the  Conference,  Gar- 
rettson refused  to  follow  his  example  and 
was  made  a  member  of  the  committee  ap- 
pointed to  treat  with  him.  Garrettson 
could  never  be  charged  with  recalcitrance. 
He  once  expressed  an  unwillingness  for 
climatic  reasons  to  accept  an  assignment  to 
a  certain  field,  and  was  long  troubled  there- 
after in  his  conscience.  But  when  he  found 
himself  in  a  minority  he  did  not  sulk,  nor 
did  he  threaten. 

The  refusal  of  his  brethren  at  the  Con- 
ference in  1787  to  comply  with  Mr.  Wesley's 
request  that  he  be  made  a  superintendent 
was  a  disappointment,  but  it  did  not  sour 
him.  Stevens  thinks  that  the  reason  why 
Garrettson  was  not  elected  a  bishop  at  this 
time  was  because  the  preachers  did  not 
regard  this  Conference  as  a  General  Con- 


The  Ecclesiastic  109 

ference.  It  must  be  remembered,  however, 
that  Wesley  had  requested  Bishop  Coke  to 
hold  a  General  Conference  at  this  time, 
and  that  much  important  business  which 
properly  belongs  to  a  General  Conference 
was  done.  As  I  have  suggested  in  another 
place,  the  failure  to  elect  Garrettson  was 
probably  due  to  the  very  evident  hostility 
to  Coke  and  Wesley,  which  was  manifested 
in  a  variety  of  ways.  One  cannot  help 
wondering  what  modifications  our  general 
superintendency  would  have  undergone,  if 
any,  had  the  members  of  the  Conference 
been  in  a  mood  to  do  as  Wesley  requested. 
It  may  be  that  there  would  have  been  some 
form  of  diocesan  episcopacy,  which  cer- 
tainly would  have  had  the  approval  of  Gar- 
rettson. His  opinion  on  this  subject  was 
most  pronounced.  At  the  last  General  Con- 
ference which  he  attended,  that  of  1824, 
according  to  Dr.  Bangs  the  sessions  were 
prolonged  much  beyond  the  usual  time  be- 
cause of  the  extended  debates  on  lay  repre- 
sentation. "Though  Mr.  Garrettson,  in  co- 
incidence with  the  majority  of  his  brethren, 
thought  it  inexpedient,  under  present  cir- 
cumstances," he  says,  "to  grant  the  prayer 
of  the  petitioners  for  a  lay  representation, 
yet  he  seemed  to  think  that  some  modifica- 


110  Freeborn  Garrettson 

tion  in  the  general  outlines  of  the  govern- 
ment might  be  usefully  introduced.  From 
what  he  has  recorded  in  his  Journal  on 
this  subject,  it  appears  that  he  adhered  to 
the  last  to  the  opinion  that  each  Annual 
Conference  should  have  its  bishop,  to  travel 
annually  through  its  bounds,  to  preside  in 
its  sessions,  and  to  station,  with  suitable 
counsel,  the  preachers."  Garrettson  having, 
like  Bishop  Simpson,  so  strong  a  preference 
for  a  local  diocesan  episcopate,  and  being 
so  firmly  persuaded  of  the  advantages  of 
this  kind  of  episcopal  supervision  and 
leadership,  believing  that  better  and  more 
permanent  good  could  be  obtained  for  the 
Church  by  such  a  fixedness  of  episcopal 
jurisdiction,  and  the  question  having  been 
so  frequently  discussed  in  their  home,  both 
Mrs.  and  Miss  Garrettson  requested  that 
his  views  should  be  published  in  his  biogra- 
phy. There  is  before  me  as  I  write  a  letter 
from  Nathan  Bangs  to  Mrs.  Garrettson,  in 
which  he  says  that  he  "submitted  the  subject 
to  the  Book  Committee  and  book  agents  and 
they  unanimously  advised  to  suppress  it." 
The  reasons  given  for  this  action  are  in- 
teresting reading.  In  brief  they  are  as 
follows:  An  authorized  publication  issued 
from  the  Book  Rooms  should  not  contain 


The  Ecclesiastic  1 1 1 

sentiments  in  contradiction  to  the  general 
economy  of  the  Church  as  sanctioned  by 
the  officers  of  the  Concern;  and,  moreover, 
no  good  would  be  accomplished  by  the  pub- 
lication of  the  "plan,"  "as  there  is  no  proba- 
bility of  his  views  being  carried  into  effect." 
And  so  the  "article  in  question"  was  ex- 
cluded from  the  Life  of  Garrettson  which 
was  brought  out  by  the  Book  Concern 
within  a  few  months  after  the  date  of  the 
letter  from  which  I  have  quoted.  But  it  may 
be  that  this  ecclesiastical  statesman  who  held 
so  tenaciously  to  these  heretical  views  of 
episcopal  supervision  was  not  altogether 
wrong.  He  may  have  been  wiser  than  his 
generation.  Possibly  it  may  be  seen  after 
a  time,  when  redoubt  after  redoubt  at  the 
great  centers  in  particular  shall  have  been 
taken,  that  what  we  need  is  not  so  much 
general  superintendency  as  local  leadership. 
The  New  York  Conference  met  in  New 
York  May  20,  181 1.  Both  Bishop  Asbury 
and  Bishop  McKendree  were  present.  One 
may  read  that  the  principal  business  was  the 
election  of  delegates  to  the  first  delegated 
General  Conference,  to  be  held  in  the  same 
city  the  following  year.  Henry  Boehm, 
Bishop  Asbury's  traveling  companion,  who 
was  also  present,  says:   "There  was  con- 


1 1 2  Freeborn   Garrettson 

siderable  excitement  and  some  electioneer- 
ing," which  may  have  been  due  to  the  fact 
that  this  was  the  first  of  the  Conferences  to 
elect  delegates  under  the  new  order !  Free- 
born Garrettson  headed  the  delegation,  as 
he  did  at  every  subsequent  election  except 
1820  until  his  death. 

In  more  than  one  of  these  quadrennial 
Conferences  the  question  of  an  elective  pre- 
siding eldership  was  debated,  Garrettson 
favoring  it  in  every  instance.  At  the  im- 
portant Conference  of  1808,  in  some  re- 
spects quite  as  important  as  the  Christmas 
Conference,  when  Bishop  Asbury  retired 
from  the  Conference  while  a  letter  to  him 
from  Bishop  Coke  was  read,  he  called  Gar- 
rettson to  the  chair;  and  later  in  this  same 
Conference,  when  the  debate  on  presiding 
elders  had  run  its  course,  it  was  Garrettson 
who  moved  that  the  vote  be  taken  by  ballot, 
which  was  done,  with  the  result  that  the 
battle  again  went  against  the  champions  of 
an  elective  presiding  eldership.  Again  in 
1812  this  question  was  a  foremost  one,  as 
indeed  it  was  in  many  subsequent  General 
Conferences,  and  concerning  Garrettson's 
attitude  in  the  matter  his  biographer  says: 
"In  respect  to  the  question  on  which  the 
General  Conference  have  long  been  divided 


The  Ecclesiastic  1 1 3 

in  sentiment,  namely,  whether  the  presiding 
elders  should  continue  to  be  appointed  as 
they  now  are  by  the  bishops,  or  be  elected 
by  the  Annual  Conferences,  it  is  well  known 
that  Mr.  Garrettson  was  in  favor  of  their 
election  by  the  Conferences.  This  is  men- 
tioned merely  as  an  historical  fact,  without 
entering  into  the  merits  of  the  question,  pro 
or  con,  or  intending  even  to  express  an 
opinion  in  relation  to  it,  any  farther  than 
to  say  that,  whether  right  or  wrong,  no 
doubt  can  be  entertained  but  that  Mr.  Gar- 
rettson acted  from  the  purest  motives,  and 
according  to  the  best  dictates  of  his  judg- 
ment." 

But  Garrettson  needs  no  apologies  for  his 
words  or  actions.  The  views  which  he  advo- 
cated were  not  unworthy  either  of  his  heart 
or  his  intellect ;  they  are  still  held  by  many 
devotedly  loyal  Methodists,  and  there  have 
been  some  indications  here  and  there  in  our 
denominational  history  which  would  seem 
to  denote  that  there  is  at  least  some  con- 
siderable basis  even  now  for  an  honest  dif- 
ference of  opinion  in  this  and  the  other 
questions  of  church  polity  to  which  Garrett- 
son gave  so  much  thought. 


CHAPTER  X 
HIS  PERSONALITY 

What  about  Garrettson  himself?    What 
manner  of  man  was  he?    For,  after  all,  it 

fis  the  person  which  counts  in  every  work, 
and  in  no  realm  of  life  more  than  in  the 
ministry.  It  is  the  commonplace  of  homi- 
\letical  literature  that  what  a  preacher  is 
/determines  in  the  end  the  effect  of  what  he 
'  teaches.  Holiness  of  life  is  a  prime  requi- 
site for  the  successful  preaching  of  the 
Word;  it  is  itself  a  sermon.  As  Massillon 
said,  "The  gospel  of  most  people  is  the  lives 
of  the  priests  whom  they  observe."  Men 
will  not  believe  a  preacher  who  does  not 
himself  exemplify  the  cardinal  teachings 
of  the  New  Testament.  Vanity,  inordinate 
ambition,  self-esteem,  avarice,  pride,  and  all 
other  sins  are  fatal  to  ministerial  efficiency. 
How  often  do  we  hear  it  said,  "I  would 
have  enjoyed  that  sermon  if  I  did  not  know 
the  man!"  It  was  Garrettson,  more  than 
what  he  said,  that  influenced  men.  He  was 
indeed  "an  example  of  believers,  in  word, 
in  conversation,  in  charity,  in  faith,  in 
purity."  "My  first  conviction  when  a  boy," 
114 


His  Personality  1 1 5 

said  an  eminent  Presbyterian  minister,  "was 
received  from  observing  Mr.  Garrettson  as 
he  was  walking  by.  There  was  something 
so  holy,  so  heavenly  in  his  expression  that 
I  was  strongly  impressed  with  the  truth  of 
religion,"  Garrettson's  power  being  largely 
in  his  goodness. 

He  was  a  man  of  much  prayer.  He  once 
said  of  Bishop  Asbury  that  he  prayed  the 
most  and  prayed  the  best  of  any  man  he 
knew,  and  I  doubt  not  that  the  mighty  As- 
bury felt  the  same  concerning  him.  It  was 
Garrettson's  common  practice  whenever  he 
visited  a  place  to  repair  at  the  first  oppor- 
tunity to  the  church  for  private  prayer. 
Those  early  Methodists  believed  in  the  effi- 
cacy of  prayer.  No  matter,  however  trivial 
seemingly,  could  be  determined  without 
divine  guidance,  which  they  sought  and 
found.  Like  Asbury,  Garrettson  spent  a 
part  of  every  hour  in  prayer.  He  said  that 
the  sweetest  hour  in  the  twenty- four  was 
the  hour  from  four  to  five  in  the  morning 
when  he  talked  with  Jehovah.  God's  min- 
isters do  not  always  find  their  revelations 
when  standing  on  the  altar  steps;  some  of 
their  most  glorious  visions  come  when  they 
are  alone  with  God.  Luther  used  to  say 
that  he  could  not  get  on  without  two  hours 


1 1 6  Freeborn   Garrettson 

a  day  for  his  private  devotions.  Dr.  Ed- 
ward Norris  Kirk,  a  Congregational  min- 
ister of  rare  ability,  confessed  that  his 
power  as  a  preacher  depended  upon  the  de- 
gree of  his  communion  with  his  Lord.  Gar- 
rettson was  a  man  of  power,  being  a  man  of 
prayer.  "That  which  gave  such  efficiency 
to  his  labor  in  the  gospel,"  says  his  bi- 
ographer, "was  the  'unction  of  the  Holy 
One'  which  rested  upon  him.  No  man,  I 
believe,  was  more  deeply  sensible  of  the 
indispensableness  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  en- 
able the  minister  of  Christ  to  succeed  in  his 
work  than  Mr.  Garrettson.  Deriving  all 
his  doctrines  and  precepts  from  the  pure 
fountain  of  divine  truth,  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, he  made  these  his  daily  study;  and 
being  deeply  conscious  that  he  must  have  the 
enlightening  and  sanctifying  influences  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  enable  him  rightly  to 
understand  and  apply  these  truths,  he  was 
assiduous  in  his  addresses  to  the  throne  of 
grace,  firmly  believing  that  God  would  'give 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  him.'  The 
success,  therefore,  which  accompanied  his 
public  labors  is  not  attributable  to  the  force 
of  human  persuasion,  or  to  the  'words  of 
man's  wisdom,'  but  to  the  'demonstration 
of  the  Spirit'  which  accompanied  his  word." 


His  Personality  1 1 7 

Like  many  of  the  most  successful  preach- 
ers of  the  Christian  centuries,  Garrcttson 
was  a  Mystic,  "a  friend  of  God,"  as  the 
Christian  Mystics  of  the  fourteenth  century 
were  called,  and  finding  his  Lord  "in  the 
inward  way."  Like  Bunyan  and  others,  he 
saw  visions  and  dreamed  dreams.  "In  a 
dream,  in  a  vision  of  the  night,  when  deep 
sleep  falleth  upon  men,  in  slumberings  upon 
the  bed,  then  he  openeth  the  ears  of  men, 
and  sealeth  their  instructions."  Both  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Garrettson  profoundly  believed 
in  such  spiritual  influences.  Their  Journals 
and  letters  disclose  what  deep  impressions 
were  made  upon  them  by  "visions  of  the 
night,"  yet  neither  failed  at  all  times  "to 
try  the  spirits."  How  sane  Garrettson  was 
in  the  matter  may  be  judged  from  this  para- 
graph of  his :  "Some  suppose  that  we  ought 
not  to  put  any  dependence  in  dreams  and 
visions.  We  should  lay  the  same  stress  on 
them  in  this  our  day  as  wise  and  good  men 
have  done  in  all  ages.  Very  great  discov- 
eries were  made  to  Peter,  Paul,  and  others 
in  their  night  visions.  But  is  there  not  a 
danger  of  laying  too  much  stress  on  them? 
We  are  in  danger  from  a  variety  of  quar- 
ters: let  us  therefore  bring  everything  to, 
and  try  it  by  the  standard ;  taking  the  Spirit 


1 1 8  Freeborn   Garrettson 

for  our  guide,  and  the  written  word  for  our 
rule,  we  shall  without  doubt  go  safe."  He 
was  neither  fanatical  nor  foolish. 

Of  Garrettson's  singleness  of  purpose 
there  is  abundant  evidence.  This  last  sum- 
mer in  London  I  found  in  a  bookshop  an 
old  volume  of  sermons,  the  title  of  the  first 
one  of  which  attracted  my  attention;  it  was, 
"Second  Motive  in  the  Ministry."  The 
writer  made  his  meaning  plain  in  the  first 
paragraph,  in  which  he  referred  to  two  per- 
sons of  the  Scriptures,  "both  of  whom 
seemed  to  have  not  only  the  outward  vo- 
cation but  who  were  apparently  sound  at 
the  heart,  but  who  gradually  sank  beneath 
one  besetting  sin  which  slowly  and  surely 
preyed  on  the  vitals  of  their  spiritual  life — 
Balaam  and  Judas."  The  sin  was  the  sin 
of  covetousness,  and  was  the  admission  of 
a  second  motive  into  the  pursuit  of  the 
spiritual  vocation,  and  each  after  passing 
through  stage  after  stage  of  self-deception 
came  to  a  fearful  and  hopeless  end.  Ther« 
are  other  second  motives ;  it  is  hard  to  keep 
an  eye  single  to  the  glory  of  God,  but  this 
Garrettson  did.  Personal,  selfish  ambitions, 
which  are  so  destructive  of  the  high  ideals 
of  the  soul,  were  utterly  foreign  to  hfs 
thought  and  feeling,  nor  was  he  tempted  to 


His  Personality  1 19 

covetousness.  During  the  entire  course  of 
his  ministry  he  never  received  any  pecuni- 
ary compensation,  being  fortunately  so 
situated  as  not  to  need  it.  The  purity  of 
his  intention  was  never  questioned.  He  was 
devoid  of  all  subtlety  and  guile,  and  being 
honest  and  sincere  himself  he  could  not  in- 
dulge in  a  suspicious  temper  toward  others. 
It  was  once  said  to  Robert  Hall  concerning 
Christmas  Evans,  "He  has  only  one  eye"; 
Hall  replied,  "Ah,  but  that's  a  piercer ;  why, 
sir,  it  is  an  eye  to  light  an  army  through 
a  wilderness  in  a  dark  night."  Such  was 
Garrettson's  power  of  spiritual  leadership, 
and  it  lay  in  this :  he  seems  to  have  had  but 
one  thought,  namely,  to  please  God.  This 
was  his  primary  motive,  and  no  secondary 
motive  entered  in  to  deflect  him  from  the 
straight  course  which  he  had  marked  cut 
for  himself.  He  compelled  confidence  by 
the  regnant  purity  of  his  motives  and  the 
dominant  tone  of  his  life.  Like  Paul, 
throughout  his  entire  career  he  could  say, 
"I  seek  not  yours,  but  you." 

Mrs.  Garrettson,  in  a  letter  which  she 
wrote  after  his  death,  gives  a  beautiful  inti- 
mate portrait  of  him :  "Though  my  dearest 
friend" — she  almost  invariably  referred  to 
him  as  her  "dearest  friend" ;  I  do  not  recall 


120  Freeborn  Garrettson 

a  single  instance  in  all  her  correspondence 
where  she  addressed  him  by  his  Christian 
name,  it  is  always  "My  dear  love,"  or  "My 
very  dear  friend,"  or  "My  dearest  husband" 
— "was  often  away,  his  punctuality  in  writ- 
ing made  his  absence  less  tedious.  I  have 
now  upward  of  a  hundred  letters,  written 
from  various  places,  in  all  which  he  speaks 
of  the  heavy  cross  he  finds  in  being  absent 
from  a  family  he  so  much  loved;  but  still 
was  enabled  to  rejoice  in  the  work  to  which 
the  Lord  called.  When  he  had  been  home 
for  any  length  of  time  he  became  absent- 
minded  and  often  in  great  heaviness.  When 
we  walked  together  I  would  try  and  divert 
his  mind  by  calling  on  him  to  view  all 
nature  in  her  loveliness.  'O,  yes,'  he  would 
say,  'it  is  all  very  beautiful;  and  God  is 
very  bountiful  to  us,  my  dear;  but  the 
burden  of  the  Lord!  souls  are  perishing; 
and  this  country  is  no  field  for  me.'  There 
was  a  continual  conflict,  so  that  I  dared  not 
make  the  least  opposition  to  his  visiting 
the  churches ;  for  this  was  his  element,  and 
in  this  he  was  blest  and  made  a  blessing  to 
others.  .  .  .  How  many  visits  he  made  to 
Baltimore,  to  the  Eastern  Shore  of  Mary- 
land, to  Washington,  Georgetown,  to  Phil- 
adelphia,   Connecticut,    Boston,    Newport, 


His  Personality  121 

Schenectady,  Albany,  New  York,  and  other 
places,  since  we  married,  I  am  not  able  to 
enumerate;  but  all  will  tell  in  luminous 
characters,  in  that  day  when  he  and  the  chil- 
dren God  has  given  him  shall  assemble  at 
the  judgment  seat  of  the  Most  High.  All 
times  of  the  night,  and  often  at  the  break 
of  day,  has  he  landed  from  the  steamboat, 
and  come  to  his  welcome  home,  to  bless  and 
praise  our  God  together  for  keeping  us 
while  apart,  and  uniting  us  again  in  health 
and  safety  at  his  footstool.  ...  A  more 
forgiving  temper  never  existed  in  any  mere 
mortal.  He  could  keenly  feel,  but  never  to 
resent,  never  to  retaliate.  .  .  .  While  he 
was  always  ready  to  make  amends,  if  he 
supposed  that  at  any  time  he  had  spoken 
too  hastily,  he  well  knew  at  the  same  time 
what  was  due  to  his  character  and  standing 
in  the  Church  of  God.  ...  He  was  eco- 
nomical from  principle,  and  always  tried 
to  instill  into  his  family  and  in  those  over 
whom  he  had  influence  the  right  use  of 
money.  Show  and  parade  he  detested,  call- 
ing it  Saul's  armor.  He  gave  what  he 
could  and  never  laid  up  one  cent  of  income. 
With  a  small  property  he  has  done  more 
than  many  with  ten  times  his  means.  With 
regard  to  himself,  I  always  thought  him  too 


122  Freeborn  Garrettson 

sparing,  and  often  urged  him  to  more  per- 
sonal liberality.  If  he  had  been  a  man  of 
the  world  he  would  have  become  very  rich. 
With  respect  to  his  diet,  no  one  need  be 
more  temperate.  He  was  almost  too  ab- 
stemious. Of  animal  food  he  ate  very 
sparingly,  sometimes  none.  He  was  very 
diligent,  indeed,  indefatigable,  until  the  end 
was  accomplished." 

All  in  all  his  was  a  strong  personality. 
He  was  a  man  of  cordial  spirit,  unostenta- 
tious, without  affectation,  a  Christian 
gentleman  of  the  finest  type,  of  rare  con- 
versational gifts  and  an  amiable  simplicity 
of  manner,  given  to  hospitality,  unfailingly 
conscientious,  ever  more  ready  to  commend 
than  to  censure,  a  lover  of  men,  generously 
forgiving  those  who  despitefully  used  him, 
without  the  passion  of  revenge,  "of  in- 
vincible gentleness,"  and  with  the  heart  of 
a  hero. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  ITINERANT'S  LAST  JOURNEY 

"The  path  of  the  righteous  is  as  the 
dawning  Hght,  that  shineth  more  and  more 
unto  the  perfect  day,"  More  than  one 
saint  has  confirmed  the  truth  of  this  beauti- 
ful proverb,  and  none  more  than  Mr.  Gar- 
rettson.  As  the  years  muhipHed  his  hfe 
became  more  and  more  glorious.  The  last 
years,  as  to  activity,  were  much  like  his 
other  years.  He  was  an  itinerant  unto  the 
very  end.  At  the  Conference  which  was  held 
in  Middlebury,  Vermont,  in  1817  he  was 
returned  as  supernumerary,  an  appointment 
which  hurt  him  somewhat  until  he  was  as- 
sured that  it  was  made  with  a  view  to  his 
convenience,  and  in  order  that  he  might  be 
at  liberty  to  labor  wherever  he  thought  he 
could  be  most  useful.  He  was  thus  given 
an  "appointment  at  large"  and  continued 
to  itinerate  as  before,  even  when  his  grow- 
ing infirmities  made  it  difiticult  for  him  to 
travel  extensively.  Still,  as  in  other  years, 
he  must  go  out  into  the  highways  and  by- 
ways seeking  for  the  lost.  "My  mind,"  he 
says,  "is  after  precious  souls."  Even  when 
123 


124  Freeborn   Garrettson 

he  remained  at  home  for  a  short  time  now 
and  again  "to  bless  his  household,"  he 
preached  on  the  Sabbaths.  Friends  came  to 
visit  him;  itinerant  preachers,  always  wel- 
come, stopped  on  their  journey ings  to  see 
him  and  counsel  with  him.  The  flowers  in 
the  garden  at  Wildercliffe  bloomed  for  him, 
and  the  loved  ones  of  the  home  circle 
counted  it  a  joy  to  minister  unto  him.  "I 
have  had  sweet  seasons,  in  reading,  writ- 
ing, and  family  devotions,"  he  writes.  But 
the  aging  itinerant  hero  must  away!  He 
revisits  the  scenes  of  his  early  triumphs; 
again  he  journeys  to  Connecticut,  Rhode 
Island,  and  Massachusetts.  "In  five  months 
I  have  traveled  about  a  thousand  miles,  and 
preached  whenever  and  wherever  I  could 
find  an  opening."  He  makes  still  another 
tour  of  the  South,  continuing  to  show  an 
active  interest  in  all  the  affairs  of  the 
Church.  In  1819  he  helped  to  form  the 
Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  being  one  of  the  committee 
of  three  designated  to  prepare  the  consti- 
tution. In  1826  he  preached  his  semicen- 
tennial sermon  before  the  New  York  Con- 
ference, and  was  again  appointed  Con- 
ference missionary,  and  returning  home 
was  accompanied  by   Bishops  McKendree 


The  Itinerant's  Last  Journey     125 

and  Hedding.  Shortly  after  this,  as  will 
be  seen  by  the  following  letter  which  ap- 
peared in  The  Christian  Advocate  in  1829, 
Mr.  Garrettson  and  his  daughter  went  to 
Schenectady.  "The  other  day,"  the  writer 
of  the  letter  says,  "while  I  was  at  the  house 
of  his  much-respected  and  bereaved  widow, 
I  had  the  pleasure  of  looking  over  the  last 
entry  which  Mr.  Garrettson  made  in  his 
diary,  and  of  reading  the  last  sentence  which 
he  ever  wrote  therein.  I  was  particularly 
struck  with  it.  It  was  written  June  8,  1826, 
while  at  the  house  of  his  friend  Dr.  Nott, 
in  Schenectady.  It  was  as  follows:  'Wed- 
nesday, 8.  I  am  pleasantly  situated  and  feel 
a  pleasure  in  retirement.  God  is  good  to 
me.'  I  was  not  less  struck  with  a  little  note 
directly  opposite,  supposed  to  have  been 
penciled  by  one  of  his  spiritual  children, 
Rev.  Ezekiel  Cooper,  which  I  here  take  the 
liberty  to  transcribe.  It  is  as  follows :  'He 
will  not  return  to  us,  but  we  shall  follow 
him.  The  close,  "God  is  good  to  me"; 
— the  last  words,  O  my  Father!  Here  he 
stops !  He  says  no  more  to  us.  But  no 
doubt  his  last  words  in  this  diary — "God 
is  good  to  me" — he  will  repeat  forever! 
E.  C,  Sept.  3,  1829.'  "  Thus  the  years 
passed,  filled  with  the  goodness  of  God. 


126  Freeborn  Garrettson 

For  several  months  before  his  death  he 
seemed  to  feel  the  uncertainty  of  his  life, 
and  an  impression  of  the  shortness  of  his 
stay  made  him  reluctant  to  stand  for  elec- 
tion as  a  delegate  to  the  General  Conference 
of  1828.  He  was  elected,  however,  though 
before  the  Conference  assembled  he  had 
entered  upon  his  reward.  In  August,  1827, 
he  went  to  New  York  to  spend  Sunday, 
expecting  to  return  the  first  of  the  week. 
Sunday  morning,  August  19,  he  preached 
in  the  Duane  Street  church  what  proved 
to  be  his  last  sermon,  from  the  text,  "But 
grow  in  grace,"  and  administered  the  sacra- 
ment. The  following  day,  in  the  home  of 
his  lifelong  friend,  Mr.  George  Suckley,  he 
was  seized  with  his  last  illness.  The  itin- 
erant had  made  his  last  journey.  He  who 
had  been  in  the  saddle  almost  constantly 
for  fifty-two  years  was  now  to  find  rest 
from  his  labors.  His  wife  and  daughter 
hurried  to  him  and  remained  with  him 
through  the  days  of  terrible  pain,  but  days 
also  of  quiet  endurance  and  triumphant 
faith.  His  daughter,  in  a  letter  to  the  Rev. 
Richard  Reece,  who  was  the  representative 
of  the  British  Wesleyan  Conference  to  the 
General  Conference  in  1824,  and  who  be- 
came a  strong  friend  of  the   Garrettsons, 


The  Itinerant's  Last  Journey      127 

gives  an  account  of  this  last  illness  from 
which  I  quote:  "As  he  descended  into  the 
dark  valley  his  views  of  the  efficacy  of  the 
atonement  became  more  and  more  enlarged. 
.  .  .  Toward  the  last  his  strength  was  so 
much  exhausted  that  articulation  became  a 
painful  effort;  but  he  would  often,  in  a 
languid,  feeble  voice,  say,  'I  want  to  go 
home;  I  want  to  be  with  Jesus,  I  want  to 
be  with  Jesus,'  ...  A  day  or  two  before 
his  departure  I  heard  him  say,  'And  I  shall 
see  Mr.  Wesley,  too.'  It  appeared  as  if  he 
was  ruminating  on  the  enjoyment  of  that 
world,  upon  the  verge  of  which  he  then  was 
— enjoyments  which  he  said  a  Christian 
could  well  understand.  His  mind  seemed 
employed  with  subjects  for  the  sweetest 
feelings  of  love  and  adoration.  When  asked 
how  he  did,  he  would  answer,  'I  feel  love 
and  good  will  to  all  mankind,'  or,  'I  see  a 
beauty  in  the  works  of  God' — forgetting 
that  the  infirmities  of  the  body  were  the 
subject  of  the  inquiry.  He  had  resigned 
his  wife  and  daughter  into  the  hand  of 
God,  and  so  great  was  his  desire  to  be 
with  Christ  that  parting  with  us  was 
robbed  of  its  bitterness.  .  .  .  Never  can  I 
hope  to  give  you  more  than  a  faint  idea 
when  the  spirit  achieved  that  last  victory 


128  Freeborn   Garrettson 

and  was  ushered  into  the  joy  of  the  Lord. 
Encircled  by  his  kind  and  affectionate 
friends,  his  brethren  and  his  sons  in  the 
gospel,  my  venerable  father  lay  apparently 
unconscious  of  everything  that  concerned 
him.  We  felt  truly  that  he  was  only  leav- 
ing the  Church  militant  to  join  the  Church 
triumphant.  Just  as  the  period  of  his  de- 
parture approached  one  of  the  preachers 
broke  forth  in  prayer,  a  prayer  so  elevated, 
so  holy  that  it  seemed  to  wrap  the  hearers 
above  all  sublunary  consideration,  and  as 
he  commended  the  dying  saint  into  the 
hands  of  God  he  prayed  that  the  mantle  of 
the  departing  patriarch  might  rest  on  his 
surviving  brethren.  His  prayer  seemed 
answered;  a  divine  influence  pervaded  the 
apartment;  two  of  the  preachers  almost 
sank  to  the  floor  under  a  glorious  sense  of 
His  presence  who  filleth  immensity." 

The  last  words  which  fell  from  his  lips, 
spoken  with  the  reverence  of  an  adoring 
child  of  God,  and  with  the  exultation  of  a 
war-scarred  veteran  and  conqueror,  were, 
"Holy,  holy,  holy.  Lord  God  Almighty! 
Hallelujah !  Hallelujah !"  It  was  the  morn- 
ing of  the  25th  of  September,  1827.  The 
long  journey  had  come  to  an  end. 


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